Adrian Schoolcraft

Adrian Schoolcraft (born 1976) is a former New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who secretly recorded police conversations from 2008 to 2009.

Adrian Schoolcraft was born in Killeen, Texas, in 1976.

His father was a police officer.

Schoolcraft amassed a set of tapes which demonstrated corruption and abuse within New York City's 81st Police Precinct.

The tapes include conversations related to the issues of arrest quotas and investigations.

Schoolcraft says an overemphasis on arrests leads to wrongful arrests and bad police work.

Schoolcraft joined the United States Navy at age 17 and served for four years (1993–1997) on the USS Blue Ridge near Japan.

He was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and other decorations while on active duty.

He was honorably discharged in 1997 and returned to Texas to work for Motorola.

In 2002 he moved to New York City, wishing to be closer to his parents (who had moved to New York state), particularly because his mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

Driven both by his mother's desire that he become an officer, and by a wish to respond to the September 11 attacks on New York City, he applied to join the NYPD.

He passed the entrance exam and joined the force two weeks later.

Soon after joining the force, Schoolcraft was deployed to Precinct 75 in Brooklyn to join Operation Impact.

After 14 months in the NYPD, he was transferred to Precinct 81 in Bedford–Stuyvesant.

After a few years on the force, he began to raise issues about understaffing and overtime, saying that the precinct had too few officers to do a good job.

He received the Meritorious Police Duty Medal in 2006, and in 2008 was cited for his "dedication to the New York City Police Department and to the City of New York".

Brooklynites who lived in the area patrolled by Schoolcraft reported that he was the only officer they knew, because he was the only one interested in conversing with them.

Schoolcraft began recording his conversations in order to respond to public complaints.

"I worked in a black community, you can think of the word I was accused of using," he said.

He subsequently decided to also record police conversations.

Between 1 June 2008 and 15 October 2009, Schoolcraft recorded conversations at the 81st Precinct police station, responsible for the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.

He brought these tapes to NYPD investigators in October 2009 as evidence of corruption and wrongdoing within the department.

The tapes were used as evidence of arrest quotas leading to police abuses such as wrongful arrests, and that emphasis on fighting crime sometimes resulted in under-reporting of crimes to artificially deflate CompStat numbers.

After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was repeatedly harassed by members of the NYPD and reassigned to a desk job.

After he left work early one day, an ESU unit illegally entered his apartment, physically abducted him and forcibly admitted him to a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for six days.

A recording from 31 October 2009 includes precinct commander Steven Mauriello ordering a raid on 120 Chauncy St.: "Everybody goes. I don't care. You're on 120 Chauncey and they're popping champagne? Yoke 'em. Put them through the system. They got bandanas on, arrest them. Everybody goes tonight. They're underage? Fuck it."

He orders: "Bring 'em in. Lodge them. You're going to go back out and process it later on."

Schoolcraft was harassed, particularly in 2009, after he began to voice his concerns within the precinct.

He was told he needed to increase arrest numbers and received a bad evaluation.

The next day, he found a paper in his locker reading: "If you don't like your job, maybe you should get another job."

Schoolcraft reports that the Department directed him toward psychological treatment rather than taking his concerns seriously.

When he discussed issues like understaffing and stop-and-frisk with NYPD psychologist Catherine Lamstein, she directed him to surrender his weapons.

Schoolcraft was reassigned to a desk job.

In October 2009, Schoolcraft disclosed his allegations to NYPD investigators in a meeting that he understood was to be confidential.

He discussed underreporting of crimes and bureaucratic hassles for people who tried to report crimes.

His father contacted David Durk, a retired detective who became famous working on similar issues (of NYPD corruption) with whistleblower Frank Serpico.

Durk contacted an officer in NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau.

In 2010, he released the audio recordings to The Village Voice, leading to the reporting of a multi-part series titled The NYPD Tapes. The same year, Schoolcraft filed a lawsuit against Jamaica Hospital and the NYPD.

In 2012 The Village Voice reported that a 2010 unpublished report of an internal NYPD investigation found the 81st precinct had evidence of quotas and underreporting.

Both of Schoolcraft's claims were settled in 2015, with him receiving $600,000 for the NYPD portion of the lawsuit.