Complaints filed against NYPD officers were at their highest level in more than a decade, according to a report filed by the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

In 2024, 5,663 complaints were filed. They fall under different umbrellas, including use of force, discourtesy, offensive language, untruthful statements and abuse of authority allegations.

In all, more than half of the complaints led to no arrests or summons issued, according to the report.

There were 1,284 cases where the CCRB determined there was wrongdoing. In those cases, they recommended what’s called command discipline A, command discipline B or formalized training. These are less severe than going to a formal trial.

However, no discipline was taken in about 70% of these cases because of a city law that sets a statute of limitations for disciplinary proceedings for misconduct within 18 months after the incident.

“This means that the department decided not to pursue disciplinary proceedings against an officer because [the NYPD’s Department Advocate’s Office] determined that the [CCRB]’s discipline recommendation was made too close to the expiration of the statute of limitations (SOL) period,” according to the annual report.

“That’s unquestionably a problem,” Steven Wasserman, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said. “They really need to process these more promptly and more efficiently.”

However, the data shows that 337 of the 890 cases “were closed 60 or more days prior to the SOL expiration.”

“All it is is a bureaucratic dodge to say that,” Richard Emery, chairman of the CCRB from 2014 to 2016, said.

Emery says that time period before the end of the SOL should have been enough to issue whatever discipline was determined, calling the CCRB “a paper tiger.”

The report said the average time for a substantiated investigation: 470 days, roughly 15-and-a-half months, already closing in on the 18 months that the SOL holds.

“It’s just disgraceful,” said Emery, when told the average length of an investigation.

One factor could be the body camera footage. The videos have helped with the quality of their investigations, according to interim board chairman Mohammad Khalid.

However, the board received more than 7,500 hours of footage this past year, which Khalid said would keep a single investigator busy for more than four years.

“I think they need more resources,” Wasserman said.

Due to a lack of resources, Khalid said CCRB had to close 1,440 complaints without doing a complete investigation. He said the board’s expanded jurisdiction in recent years has played a role.

“The NYPD has millions of interactions with New Yorkers every year, and this represents an incredibly small percentage of those interactions,” an NYPD spokesperson said in a statement responding to a request for comment on the report. “The NYPD is fully committed to every aspect of our public safety mission, including enforcing the law with courtesy, professionalism, and respect.”