The interim chairwoman of an independent police oversight panel who had fiercely criticized the Police Department will step down at the request of Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The official, Arva Rice, has chaired the panel, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, since Mr. Adams installed her in February 2022, calling her “a champion for equity and justice.”
But she has drawn the anger of police officials for criticizing delays in handing over evidence in the fatal shooting of a Bronx man in his home five years ago — and for requesting a larger budget and more power to investigate complaints against police officers.
The resignation request was delivered by Mr. Adams’s deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III, who served as the Police Department’s top uniformed officer before resigning under the cloud of a federal corruption investigation in 2014, according to two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal City Hall personnel matters. Mr. Banks was never charged.
Ms. Rice, who also serves as president and chief executive of the New York Urban League, is expected to comply with the request in coming weeks, the people said.
Ms. Rice has criticized police for failing to hand over evidence in a timely manner in the fatal police shooting of Kawaski Trawick, a 32-year old man from the Bronx who was killed in his apartment in 2019 after officers say he jumped at them with a knife.
Speaking at a board meeting last week, Ms. Rice said the police waited 18 months to turn over body camera footage. The delay caused the board’s investigation to exceed the review board’s own statute of limitations — which made it more difficult for the board to recommend that the officers be charged with a crime. Ms. Rice said the board’s investigation found that the officers improperly entered Mr. Trawick’s home, used improper force and failed to aid him after shooting him.
In 2020, Bronx district attorney Darcel D. Clark declined to file charges against the officers, Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis. And two weeks ago, Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban ruled that the two officers had acted properly and would not face punishment.
Over the past two years, Ms. Rice has also called for more funding. In budget testimony before the City Council last month, Ms. Rice asked for $13 million more than the year before and $15 million above what the administration proposed.
Ms. Rice was also pushing for changes to a state law that prevented the board from accessing body camera footage and other police records in some cases that had been sealed.
Maya Wiley, a former mayoral candidate and the former chairwoman of the C.C.R.B., said Ms. Rice’s removal was troubling.
“Every single indicator is that she is not toeing the line,” Ms. Wiley said in an interview, “and that line is protecting the Police Department.”
Ms. Rice, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, Kayla Mamelak, declined to discuss the resignation request or say who might replace Ms. Rice as the board’s leader, calling her “a holdover appointment.” Though former Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Ms. Rice to the board, Mr. Adams named her interim chairwoman.
The mayor has often praised the diversity of his administration. But Ms. Rice’s forced departure marks at least the third high-ranking Black woman to leave the administration in the past several months.
Keechant Sewell, the first woman to lead the Police Department, abruptly resigned in June after current and former police officials said she felt she was being micromanaged by the mayor and his team — including Mr. Banks.
Last week, The New York Times reported that Mayor Adams was moving to replace Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, the corporation counsel, with Randy Mastro, who served as chief of staff and deputy mayor to former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
The City Council has voiced strong opposition to approving Mr. Mastro, citing his client roster.
Christopher Dunn, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said Ms. Rice has been “openly critical” of the department for its handling of the Trawick case, which “is very unusual for a C.C.R.B chair, much less someone who is an interim chair.”
Mr. Adams was elected in part on the promise that his background — as a former police officer who spoke out against brutality and as someone who was himself abused by police — would allow him to be tough on crime without violating the public’s rights.
