Sunday Briefing: CCRB Delays, Jewish Heritage Event Fallout, Teacher Runs Wild in Colombia

Robert Cox

18 May 2026 — 4 min read

New Rochelle Police Commissioner Neil Reynolds Squirms as Chairperson Natasha Fapohunda Address City Council on CCRB Plan.

This briefing draws from reporting at Talk of the Sound, analysis and commentary published in Words in Edgewise, and selected regional coverage for the week ending May 17, 2026

A Note from the Publisher

Every significant investigation I do starts the same way — with a research report. I pull together everything I know, everything I’ve obtained under FOIL, every document, every timeline, every question that needs answering.

The report organises my thinking and becomes the foundation for the stories I publish. I’ve been doing this for years. I never publish the reports themselves.

This one became so substantive I decided to publish it — paid subscribers only.

What started as background research on the New Rochelle Civilian Complaint Review Board — why a board seated nearly a year ago has never held a single meeting — grew significantly. Twenty-five FOIL requests. Seventy-one questions directed at eight officials and organisations. Six years of reporting on police accountability in New Rochelle, from the death of Kamal Flowers in June 2020 through the Vaccaro assault, the Garris shooting, and the Kane evidence tampering case. A complete analysis of every sustained civilian complaint against NRPD officers I could document going back decades. The full composition of the predecessor oversight body — and why few of its 13 members was genuinely independent of the city government they were supposed to be overseeing.

By the time I was done the report ran to more than 500 paragraphs. It was not written to be read — it has no narrative structure, no through-line, no story arc. It is a research document. Publishing it as a single piece would have been overwhelming and frankly pointless.

So I broke it into 14 sections and published them as individual posts on Words in Edgewise, available to paid subscribers. I created a public index post linking all 14 sections. And I took the report’s findings and built six stories for Talk of the Sound — one a day, free to all readers — starting Sunday.

This is the first time I have ever published one of these reports. It got big enough, and interesting enough, that it seemed worth making it public.

The first Talk of the Sound story ran Sunday. Five more are coming, one per day. Before I finish publishing all six I expect new information will be coming in — from FOIL responses, from officials who choose to respond to my inquiries, and from readers who know things I don’t. There will be more stories before this is done, probably dozens.

A Note from the Publisher

If You Read Nothing Else This Week

Public Safety & First Responders

Courts & Accountability

Schools & Government

Sound Shore Community & Culture

Words in Edgewise

Ongoing Investigations & Major Series

In Memoriam

Closing

Read more

New Rochelle Civilian Complaint Review Board: Full Investigation

New Rochelle CCRB Investigation: Source Documents

New Rochelle CCRB Investigation: FOIL Requests

New Rochelle CCRB Investigation: Questions for Officials