See also: Kamal Flowers: A Story of Armed Encounters with Police
NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The story of Alec McKenna is a story of traffic stops.
He was twice named Officer of the Month for drug-related arrests he made as a result of traffic stops. His supervisors expressed concerns about McKenna’s traffic stops. Internal Affairs investigated his traffic stops. He first drew his weapon while on duty following a traffic stop. Each violation listed in his disciplinary record stems from failures to follow departmental policies and procedures for traffic stops.
And on the night of June 5, 2020, a traffic stop initiated by McKenna ended with the death of Kamal Flowers.
That incident occurred less than two weeks after the death of George Floyd sent shockwaves across the country on May 25, 2020.
McKenna is White. Flowers was Black.
A comprehensive analysis of hundreds of previously unseen police disciplinary records going back decades, obtained exclusively by Talk of the Sound, reveal that in a short period of time McKenna accumulated one of the worst disciplinary records in the history of the New Rochelle Police Department.
A complete set of Internal Affairs records for Alec Kenna were released by the City of New Rochelle on March 4, 2021, making them the first internal police disciplinary records ever made public in New Rochelle.
At the time, we decided not to report further on the McKenna records without knowing more about the Individual Delinquency Records (“IDR”) and supporting documents for all officers. Without them any reporting on the McKenna records would lack context.
Likewise, we withheld reporting further on the full criminal history of Kamal Flowers which we obtained over the past ten months.
Last month we obtained “top line” summaries of Internal Affairs records based on a Freedom of Information request covering 597 New Rochelle police officers — active duty and retired, living and deceased, some recent, some going back decades. We manually entered data paper documents scanned into PDF files then added in data from pension records and payroll records. We now have a unique, comprehensive database of New Rochelle Police Department personnel with some records going back over 100 years. More than four dozen fields of data across more than 1,200 records — tens of thousands of bits of information.
The result of that effort is described here: How We Created the Talk of the Sound New Rochelle Police Department Disciplinary Records Database.
To differentiate the disciplinary history described in the records for 597 officers we obtained under a Freedom of Information request, we created a logarithmic scale of 0 to 100 to group officers logically according to a coded/weighted measure of their disciplinary record — or lack-thereof.
Officers with no IDR records were given a zero. For those with IDR records, points were added to an officer’s score based on the disposition of each Internal Affairs investigation then adjusted based on the number of violations cited in the digest of the complaint. The worse the record the higher the score. No matter how bad a record, the highest possible total score was 100. A termination or forced resignation was an automatic 100.
Our statistical method was to code each violation, weight the violation, total the points per officer then group officers within a certain range and give that range a group designation, a letter grade, converted as follows:
A = 0 points
B = 1 to 5 points
C = 6 to 20 points
D = 21 to 50 points
F = 51 to 100 points.
McKenna received an F.
What follows is an explanation of how and why McKenna was graded as among the lowest performing officers in the department based on his record before the night he shot and killed Kamal Flowers.
Police Officer Alec McKenna joined the New Rochelle Police Department on July 29, 2015.
He was also an active Army reservist.
By 2018, McKenna was a Field Training Officer assigned to the third tour in the Police Services Division.
McKenna was named Police Officer of the Month for January 2018 and again for March 2018, both for drug-related arrests following traffic stops. On May 22, 2019, McKenna was given a Lifesaving Award and two Commendation Awards.
At the end of August 2019, Third Tour Supervisors became aware of incidents involving traffic stops by McKenna which “caused them concerns”, according to records seen by Talk of the Sound.
Two Internal Affairs cases were opened: #2019-28 on 9/5/19 and #2019-29 on 116/2019.
On December 16, 2019, McKenna was given two separate Command Disciplines resulting from the pair of overlapping investigations. McKenna agreed to accept forfeiting a total of 7 days of leave, an extraordinarily severe disposition for what City officials later sought to characterize as an investigation of “several technical infractions” of the New Rochelle Police Department Rules and Regulations Manual of Procedure initiated by McKenna’s supervisors as part of “quality assurance” in which the department closely monitors the actions of relatively new officers.
To the contrary, by the time McKenna was disciplined, he was a decorated veteran in the department with 5 years on the job working as a Field Training Officer. He was not a “relatively new” officer. The investigation was not some sort of routine “quality assurance” program but rather an unusual “in-depth investigation” launched by McKenna’s supervisors based on their concerns with his traffic stops. The investigation involved reviewing hundreds of hours of video recorded by in-car camera systems over a 60-Day period in the Summer of 2019.
Since the death of Kamal Flowers, New Rochelle officials have repeatedly misrepresented, minimized or masked the conduct of police officer Alec McKenna to sanitize his record.
For example, in an email dated July 16, 2020, the City Manager issued a statement claiming McKenna had never drawn his gun in the line of duty before the night of June 5, 2020.
In his five years on the job, Officer McKenna was never accused of, nor found to have used, excessive force, nor did he ever draw his gun in the line of duty before the June 5 shooting.
A Use of Report for January 11, 2020, seen by Talk of the Sound flatly contradicts the City Manager’s claim that Alec McKenna had never drawn his gun in the line of duty before the June 5 shooting.
By March 4, 2021, the claim had been quietly rowed back to say only:
During his tenure on the force, he was never accused of nor found to have engaged in using inappropriate or excessive force.
The statement by the City Manager characterized McKenna’s disciplinary record as infractions including “failing to impound an unregistered vehicle, allowing an unregistered driver to leave the scene, failing properly log a stop/frisk, and allowing a driver who failed a sobriety test to walk away from the scene.”
It is true that McKenna was never found to have used inappropriate or excessive force prior to June 5, 2020. It is true that many of the violations which resulted in the Command Discipline issued on December 16, 2019 were, in a vacuum, minor technical violations.
But to minimize the findings of the Internal Affairs investigations, is to ignore that the investigation was begun based on the concerns of McKenna’s supervisors that there was something wrong about McKenna’s traffic stops, that the investigation confirmed those concerns and that while a particular violation might be minor or technical, McKenna had a preponderance of such violations (16 violation types) with dozens of instances for most violation types.
According to the NRPD Command Discipline Report for P.O. Alec McKenna dated December 16, 2019, McKenna was cited for a total of 158 violations in an investigation period that ran from June 23, 2019 to August 24, 2019.
Investigators only stopped finding violations because they stopped looking.
McKenna was cited for 19 violations of MOP 2.1 (failed to log in to in-car camera system or properly classify his vehicle stops).
6/6, 7/25, 7/28 (3x), 8/4, 8/12 (2x), 8/13, 8/18 (4x), 8/19 (5x), 8/23.
McKenna was cited for 14 violations of MOP 3.01 (failed to accurately enter information into the CAD notes).
6/23, 6/26, 7/28, 7/31, 8/4, 8/5, 8/6, 8/12, 8/16, 8/17 (2x), 8/18, 8/19, 8/23
McKenna was cited for 30 violations of MOP 3.01 (failed to record and provide complete documentation of his traffic stops in the CAD system).
6/27, 6/28, 7/4, 7/25, 7/28, 7/29 (2x), 7/31 (3x), 8/3, 8/4, 8/6 (4x), 8/12 (3x), 8/12 (2x), 8/18 (4x), 8/19 (3x), 8/24 (2x).
McKenna was cited for 31 violations of R&R 1.13 (failed to call out a vehicle stop).
6/27, 6/28, 7/4 (2x), 7/28 (3x) 7/29 (2x), 7/31 (2x), 8/3, 8/4, 8/6 (4x), 8/12 (3x), 8/16 (2x), 8/18 (4x), 8/19 (3x), 8/24 (2x)
McKenna was cited for 12 violations of R&R 1.31 (failed to voucher contraband that he recovered during traffic stops).
6/27 (2x), 7/24, 7/28 (2x), 7/31, 8/12, 8/16, 8/17, 8/19 (3x)
McKenna was cited for 15 violations of R&R 1.28 (failed to document his vehicle stops in his memo book)
6/23, 6/26, 6/27 (2x), 6/31, 7/19, 7/22, 7/28, 7/29 (2x), 8/4, 8/13, 8/19 (2x), 8/23
McKenna was cited for 13 violations of MOP 3.01 (turned off his in-car camera microphone during traffic stops).
6/23, 6/27 (2x), 7/24, 7/25, 7/28, 7/31, 8/12 (3x), 8/16 (2x), 8/17
McKenna was cited for 3 violations of MOP 3.01 (failed to record his traffic stops from beginning to end)
6/23 (2x), 7/24
McKenna was cited for 14 violations of MOP 3.6 (failed to file a field contact after a stop and frisk/search)
6/23, 6/27 (2x), 7/24, 7/28, 7/31 (2x), 8/5, 8/6, 8/12, 8/16, 8/17, 8/18, 8/19
McKenna was cited for 3 violations of MOP 2.3 (allowed unlicensed drivers to leave the scene of a traffic stop)
8/6, 8/12, 8/19
McKenna was cited for 3 violations of MOP 3.2A (lied in an incident report, claiming a motorist resolved an insurance/registration on the scene of a traffic stop, DMV records showed otherwise).
6/27
McKenna was cited for 1 violation of MOP 2.02 & 2.05 (failed to administer a field sobriety test after a traffic stop to a motorist who admitted marijuana use, allowed the driver to walk away, did not impound the vehicle)
8/16
The resulting Command Discipline was not minor. McKenna received a Loss of 2 Days Leave and a Loss of 5 Days Leave for what were treated as 2 separate IA investigations but were the result of a single investigation initiated in August 2019.
Talk of the Sound has reviewed the disciplinary records of 597 police officers of which 445 had no record of violations at all. Of the remaining 148 officers, among them they had a combined 772 violations where the two most common dispositions were a Letter of Reprimand (about 60%) and Loss of 1 Leave Day (about 16%).
With that context, consider that less than 3% of all violations before the disposition of the McKenna cases resulted in the Loss of 5 Leave Days and none in the Loss of 7 Leave Days based on one investigation.
The Loss of 5 to 7 Leave Days is among the most severe dispositions given in the New Rochelle Police Department.
Three weeks after accepting the discipline, McKenna made yet another questionable traffic stop on January 11, 2021 that ended with McKenna drawing his weapon on two suspects as the result of a supposedly illegal U-Turn.
In the Use of Force Report, McKenna claims that on January 11, 2020 he observed a driver make an illegal U-Turn at a location on Lincoln Avenue where it is legal to make a U-Turn. Nowhere in the report is it indicated that McKenna made a call out of a vehicle stop. In a report of U-Turn violations containing those issued in 2021, a U-Turn violation (VTL 1162) notice was issued to the driver but the location given was the North Avenue overpass where the incident ended not Lincoln Avenue and North Avenue where he claims the “illegal” U-Turn took place in the Use of Force report.
Five months after that, following yet another questionable traffic stop, McKenna shot and killed Kamal Flowers on June 5, 2020.
We scored McKenna’s disciplinary record based on the violations listed in the “top line” summary of his Individual Disciplinary Record prior to June 5, 2020, not every instance of a particular violation listed in the Internal Affairs Investigation covering the Summer of 2019.
McKenna had 1 violation resulting in 2 Lost Leave Days or 1 + 2 = 3 points.
McKenna had 15 violations resulting in 5 Lost Leave Days or (5 + 1) x 15 = 90
McKenna scored a 93 to earn an F-rating.
McKenna has the 15th worst score in the history of the New Rochelle Police Department based on records we obtained.
McKenna has the 2nd worst score for violations by all officers in the past 5 years.
McKenna has the 6th worst score for total career among Active Duty officers.
Given McKenna’s record of violating policies and procedures for traffic stops, a question looming over the night of June 5, 2020 is which senior officer thought it appropriate to place an officer with a well-documented history of disabling the in-car video recording system into an unmarked police car which does not even have an in-car video recording system.
As Mayor Bramson said at his June 6, 2020 press conference, only patrol cars have dash cams.
“It’s fair to say that we wish footage were available, it would be very helpful,” said Bramson.
That there was no dash cam video from the fatal traffic stop was not “bad luck” but a deliberate choice made by someone in police command to place McKenna in a police vehicle where he did not need to disable the in-car video recording system because there was no in-car video recording system.
Not only was there no “footage” from the “patrol car” (by which Bramson means audio and video from the radio car) but for as long as McKenna was riding in an unmarked police vehicle there was no way to conduct the sort of in-depth investigation of any of his traffic stops as had been done a year earlier, even if only to determine if McKenna had improved his conduct regarding traffic stops.
Despite our best efforts, no NRPD records from that night have been made public.
The City Manager has claimed that the City of New Rochelle conducted a comprehensive review of the officer-involved shooting of Kamal Flowers to “determine if there were any violations of the policies and procedures of the New Rochelle Police Department by any New Rochelle Police personnel”.
This assessment included a review of all available information and evidence, interviews with police personnel who were at the scene, as well as other witnesses. The City’s Police Commissioner is responsible for determining if disciplinary action is warranted. He is issuing a statement today which concludes, after he reviewed all relevant factors and evidence available to the Internal Affairs Unit of the NRPD, that there were no violations of the rules, policies or procedures of the Department by any New Rochelle police personnel.
NRPD Police Commissioner Joseph Schaller said “none of the officers involved in the incident committed any violations of the Department’s policies and procedures.”
In this context, it is noteworthy that despite numerous Freedom of Information requests since June 5, 2020, we have yet to receive the complete set of video and police radio transmissions from that night or the various NRPD reports.
In particular:
- The CCTV video from North Avenue in the area of Park Place and Lockwood Avenue.
- Police Radio Transmissions for the minutes prior to the Traffic Stop on Pierce Street.
- The NRPD Incident Report plus Supplemental Narrative and all related documents.
- The NRPD Use of Force Report.
- The NRPD Firearm Discharge Report
On June 6, 2020, Mayor Noam Bramson, addressing the community at a press conference, spoke earnestly about providing full transparency including making available all videos and radio transmissions from the officer-involved shooting on June 5, 2020.
That never happened.
The existence of highly significant CCTV video was never made known to the public let alone released to the public, either voluntarily or under existing FOIL requests. The secret video depicts an unmarked NRPD vehicle with McKenna moving from Park Place near North Avenue and onto North Avenue near Lockwood Avenue then pulling alongside a Black Dodge Charger with Virginia license plates, a vehicle driven by Isa Muhammad with Kamal Flowers as a passenger.
The video corroborates Muhammad’s version as to when the event actually began — not on Pierce Street but on North Avenue between Park Place and Lockwood Avenue.
The video was presented to the McKenna Grand Jury last Fall but remains under lock and key at police headquarters despite our FOIL requests and the Mayor’s promise to be transparent.
Some police radio traffic from the night of July 5, 2020 was released but appears to have been selectively edited. For example, it does not include the first few minutes of the incident, namely the period from when the officers in the unmarked NRPD vehicle spotted the vehicle driven by Isa Muhammad, described in an NRPD press release as “a suspicious Black Dodge Charger with Virginia license plates”. As noted above, this occurred in the vicinity of North Avenue between Park Place and Lockwood Avenue several minutes before the traffic stop on Pierce Street. It appears the audio of that night released by the New Rochelle Police Department begins only after the traffic stop had already occurred.
The effort to conflate the 911 call on June 3, 2020 with McKenna’s traffic stop on June 5, 2020 is based on a false narrative as we conclusively demonstrated based on the police departments’ own record: Questions Emerge About Traffic Stop that Preceded New Rochelle Police Shooting as Mayor, Cops Back Off Tinted Windows Tale
The audio includes officers responding to the scene of the shooting but no audio of the two officers in McKenna’s vehicle providing their location which begs the question, how did all the other officers know where to go when the shooting occurred?
The missing several minutes of police radio communications was not released to the public.
Since June 5, 2020, we have made many and repeated requests for public records pertaining to the officer-involved shooting on June 5, 2020, including but not exclusively:
- All relevant police radio communications.
- All relevant video recordings
- The relevant NRPD Incident Report
- The relevant NRPD Use of Force Report
- The relevant NRPD Firearm Discharge Report
We have yet to receive any of those records.
On November 13, 2020 we made an inquiry as to how best to make a FOIL request for video records for “all police and traffic cam video from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5” or “all police radio comms from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5” or “all 911 calls from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5” in which we proposed reducing the amount of work involved by NRPD sending us the “public records that were contained in what was packaged and provided to the New York State Police and/or the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.”
On November 19, 2020, we received a letter treating our inquiry as a FOIL request (it was not, it was an inquiry on how best to make a FOIL request to reduce the work required by NRPD personnel to gather records).
Our “request” was denied on what we believe to be spurious grounds.
As we noted in our response on the same day:
“(We) fail to see on what basis a police or traffic video, for instance, or a use of force report or incident report — which is otherwise a public record — becomes exempt because it may have been submitted to the DA for use in their presentation to a Grand Jury. By this logic, a police department could submit every public record of every kind to a DA and if their is no indictment all public records suddenly become exempt.”
After all of the six investigations were completed as of March 4, 2021, we submitted a new FOIL request:
- all police and traffic cam video from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5
- all police dash cam video from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5
- all police radio comms from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5
- all 911 calls from 10 pm to 12 am on June 5.
On March 8, 2020 the NRPD acknowledged receipt of our request and stated a follow-up response would be sent back on or before April 2, 2021.
No such response has been received.
It is worth noting the following as an example of what is a long history of seemingly false or contradictory statements related to the officer-involved shooting on June 5, 2020 (none of which to our knowledge have ever been retracted, amended or otherwise corrected).
The effort by NRPD to falsely conflate a 911 call on June 3, 2020 to the officer-involved shooting on June 5, 2020, an effort which began just hours after the death of Kamal Flowers is ongoing. The inaccurate press statement issued on June 16, 2020 remains on the City web site to this day even though police records we obtained and published last sumner prove this to be a false narrative.
Updated Information – New Rochelle Police Officer involved shooting on June 5, 2020
No police radio transmission of a vehicle stop for a Black Dodge Charger with Virginia license plates on June 5, 2020 was released by the New Rochelle Police Department as part of an audio recording purporting to be all relevant police radio transmissions from the officer-involved shooting incident on June 5, 2020.
As noted, in the press release about McKenna on March 4, 2020, City Manager Charles Strome said an internal investigation of the officer-involved shooting on June 5, 2020 found there were “no violations of the rules, policies or procedures of the Department by any New Rochelle police personnel.”
In the same press release, Police Commissioner Joe Schaller said “none of the officers involved in the incident committed any violations of the Department’s policies and procedures.”
If there is a recording of a call out of the vehicle stop of the Black Dodge Charger with Virginia license plates, it has not been released despite claims by the Mayor that all relevant audio would be and was released and despite our previous Freedom of Information requests for this audio, a violation of the Public Officers Law by New Rochelle police personnel.
If there was no callout of the traffic stop of the Black Dodge Charger with Virginia license plates on June 5, 2020 and thus no recording, then that is a violation of R&R 1.13 (Failure to call out a vehicle stop) in which case claims by the City Manager and Police Commissioner that there were no violations of the rules, policies or procedures of the Department by any New Rochelle police personnel regarding the officer-involved shooting would be false.
One way or another, the City of New Rochelle and New Rochelle Police Department are lying about a call out of a vehicle stop regarding the officer-involved shooting: either there is a recording of such a call out and it has been illegally withheld from Talk of the Sound or there is no recording of such a call out in which case there was a violation of R&R 1.13 and so the statements by Strome and Schaller that there were no violations are untrue.
This is hardly the first time lies of such significance have been told.
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