The Nuclear Option: What Happens If Westchester’s Bad Cop List Was Never Maintained

DUBLIN, IRELAND (May 21, 2026) — I have been covering the New Rochelle Police Department for more than two decades. I have filed hundreds of FOIL requests, built the most comprehensive database of NRPD disciplinary records in existence, and spent the last six years documenting four major incidents in which white officers killed, assaulted, or framed Black men — none of which was ever reviewed by a civilian oversight body.

I have seen a lot. What I am about to describe is different in kind from anything I have previously reported. It is not a story about one bad officer or one bad case. It is a story about what happens if the system designed to protect defendants’ rights was never properly maintained — and what the consequences of that failure might be.

Inside: a DA who promised to release a bad cop list and never did. Three officers whose documented conduct belongs on it. Grand juries that may never have heard the full picture. An evidence tampering admission that sat in an internal file until Talk of the Sound obtained it. A civilian oversight board that has never met. A PBA president who turned out to be a criminal. And a question — not a conclusion, but a question — about whether what happened in New Rochelle and Westchester County over the last decade warrants attention beyond the local and state level.

I want to be clear about what I know and what I don’t know. What I know is documented. What I don’t know is the question that keeps me up at night.