Roxbury’s Philip Eure named NYPD Inspector General

As the first person appointed Inspector General for the New York Police Department, Philip Eure, 52, sets the template for establishing police accountability in the big city. In his new role, Eure will use input from the NYPD to “identify patterns of concerns and come up with real-world policing solutions,” he said at the press conference last week.

The Office of Inspector General was created by the New York City Council in response to complaints of excessive stop-and-frisk and antagonism toward Muslims.

For 14 years before being tapped for inspector general by Mayor Bill de Blasio, Eure served as executive director for the Washington D.C. Office of Police Complaints, where he and his staff responded to public complaints of police misconduct and recommend policies and programs for police reform. One such reform he implemented was training the police force to interact with people suffering mental illness, which affects a large portion of the urban homeless population. He was the first appointee to the executive director position.

Prior to working at the Office of Police Complaints, Eure served 11 years as senior litigation attorney for the Department of Justice.

Eure also served for two years as president of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, where he wrote a publication entitled, “Police Oversight Agencies are Well-Suited to Address ‘Contempt of Cop’ Arrests.”

He grew up in Roxbury, studied political science at Stanford University, and received a law degree from Harvard Law School.