Almost 100 of the 346 allegations made between 2014 and 2016 were substantiated by the board, not counting the many cases that may not have been reported.

To be fair, there are many thousands of contacts between police and individuals that happen in New York City. Although there is no way to know how many of those interactions are recorded, it's fair to assume that many of them have been as cell-phone recording capabilities have become ubiquitous. However, there is clearly a segment of officers—perhaps very small, but nevertheless real—who feel that they may violate the First Amendment rights of people who record them. To alleviate this, the CCRB suggested that a new entry should be included in the Patrol Manual to reassert the public's right to record police interactions. That insertion is fine, but more could and should be done because it is extremely unlikely that every officer who disrupted lawful, public recording was ignorant of the right to do so. Any officer who already knew the law was committing misconduct.