Richard Emery should al🎀ready be gone — not because the Civilian Complaint Review Board ⛄chief called cops “pigs,” but because of his longtime anti-police record and his blatant conflict of interest.
A conflict in which his law 🐓firm continues to sue police officers being investigated by the agency he chairs.
Emery stepped in it b🦂y charging police unions demanding his removal w💝ere “squealing like a stuck pig.”
Cops were understandably outraged by Emery’s invoking the notorious anti-cop insult. Gov. Cuomo called on him to either apologize or resign for a remark “obnoxious” and “insultin♕g to all police.” Even Mayor de Blasio called it “very insensitive.”
Now Emery’s trying to pseudo-apologize, weaseling about “to the extent that anyone was offended by my poor choice of words” and insisting he’d “never use the word ‘pig’ to refer to police 🧸officers.”
So what? The problem isn’t his Freudian slip, but his shocking combina👍tion of jobs.
This is th🐻e same Richard Emery who’s made a handsome living suing the city ꦛand whose law firm boasts that it “has successfully represented hundreds of clients in police misconduct cases.”
And the firm has keptꦓ on filing anti-cop suits, collecting hundreds of thousands in settlemen♕ts after Emery’s appointment.
Sure, the Conflicts of Interest Board OK’d this cozy arrangement — as long as Eme🌃ry recuses himself from those cases.
But thౠat just goes to show what a rubber-stamp the conflicts board has become.
The CCRB chief has influence even when he’s officially uninvolved. Not least, Emery oversees studies and reports that inওevitably influence all cases of alleged misconduct.
Plus, as Post columnist Bob McManus recently wrot🍌e, Emery’s the marquee name on the law firm’s shingle — the one that brings in money-hun🤪gry plaintiffs.
That makes what he does barely different from the kind of “rainmaking” behavior that’s send꧒ing Sheldon Silver to prison.
Richard Emery needs to go — not for his words, but for far more serious outrag🌃es.