WASHINGTON — A CIA operative’s unusual assignment inside the New York Police Department is being cut short after an internal investigation that criticized how the agency established its unprecedented collaboration with city police, The Associated Press has learned.
In its investigation, the CIA’s inspector general faulted the agency for sending an officer to New York with little oversight after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and then leaving him there too long, according to officials who have read or been briefed on the inquiry. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation. The CIA said last month that the inspector general cleared the agency of any wrongdoing.
The inspector general opened its investigation after a series of AP articles that revealed how the NYPD, working in close collaboration with the CIA, set up spying operations that put Muslim communities under scrutiny. Plainclothes officers known as “rakers” eavesdropped in businesses, and Muslims not suspected of wrongdoing were nonetheless put in intelligence databases.
The CIA officer cited by the inspector general for operating without sufficient supervision, Lawrence Sanchez, was the architect of spying programs that helped make the NYPD one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. The programs have drawn criticism from Muslims as well as state and national lawmakers.
On Thursday, Muslim activists urged Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to resign and invoked the legacy of the 1960s FBI program COINTELPRO, which spied on political and activist groups.
“We the people find ourselves facing the specter of a 21st-century COINTELPRO, once again in the name of safety and security,” said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Islamic Leadership Council of New York.
Sanchez, a CIA veteran who according to his biography spent 15 years overseas in the former Soviet Union, South Asia and the Middle East, was sent to New York to help with information- sharing following the Sept. 11 attacks. While on the CIA payroll from 2002 to 2004, he also helped create and direct police intelligence programs. He then formally joined the NYPD while on a leave of absence from the CIA.
The loosely defined assignment strained relations with the FBI and two consecutive CIA station chiefs in New York who complained that Sanchez’s presence undermined their authority. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the rules were murky, but they attributed that to the desperate push for better intelligence after the attacks.
Sanchez left the NYPD in 2010. Then, last July, the CIA sent one of its most senior clandestine operatives to work out of the NYPD. That’s the officer who now is leaving. While the internal investigation found problems with the oversight of Sanchez’s assignment, officials said the rules of the current arrangement were more clearly defined.
Relations between the NYPD and the Muslim community were further strained this week when the department acknowledged that it showed nearly 1,500 officers a training video featuring Kelly. The video portrayed Muslims wanting to “infiltrate and dominate” the United States.
