The U.S. Justice Department filed a document yesterday in the pending class-action lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department's stop-and-frisk procedures. The Justice Department has endorsed the concept of an outside monitor to make sure the NYPD implements any court-ordered remedies in the case - if, of course, the plaintiffs prevail.
]]> The Justice Department did not exactly say it would be willing to play such a monitoring role itself. And the federal court has not yet ruled on whether the NYPD has deliberately and systemically engaged in civil rights violations by overuse of stop-and-frisk tactics.If the court does make such a ruling, however, the Justice Department has gone on record as supporting the creation of a court-appointed monitor to make sure the police take sufficient steps to comply with court-ordered remedies. That is a significant development in this closely watched case.
After all, at stake is the allegation that the NYPD has repeatedly engaged in racial profiling to target minorities for unjustified police stops.
Not surprisingly, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelley argues that a federal court monitor would somehow get in the way of good policing by the NYPD. That argument echoes his opposition to the creation of an independent inspector general to provide objective oversight of the department.
The reality is that court-ordered monitors have played effective role in several other cities without overstepping their bounds.
Source: The New York Times, "U.S. Offers Conditional Support for Police Monitor in Stop-and-Frisk Case," J. David Goodman, June 13, 2013
]]>Given the frequency and size of such suits, it is time to revisit a question that remains controversial: Could an independent inspector general improve oversight of the NYPD and bring down the number of civilian complaints?
As we discussed in our April 18 post, the idea for creating such a position has hardly come out of the blue. Indeed, the proposal has come from the City Council itself.
]]> The New York Times has weighed in to support the idea. In an editorial, the Times opined that an inspector could be worth a try in seeking structural checks and balances to address police misconduct.New York's current Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio, also supports the idea as a way to promote accountability and transparency. Mr. de Blasio is also a candidate for major as Mayor Bloomberg's term winds down.
But as political theorists have long known, power yields nothing without some sort of struggle. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly remains pointedly opposed to adding more police oversight. He also downplays the sheer size of the city's tab in defending and settling civil rights cases, claiming the city is often too quick to settle.
No one denies that the NYPD has a tough job. Policing a densely populated, racially diverse, economically fragmented metropolis is unavoidably challenging. It does not always involve sweetness and light. But it should involve so many cases of excessive force and police misconduct, either.
Source: New York Daily News, "Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly rejects calls for more oversight after successful lawsuits against NYPD," Barry Paddock, Chelsia Rose Marcius and Rocco Paraschandola, May 20, 2013
]]>The new policy has still been in place for less than a year. But since July 2011, the city’s position has been less likely to offer early settlements to end civil rights lawsuits.
Still, the problem of police misconduct is serious enough to lead to continued questions. Last week, for example, the Daily News ran a piece pointing out that a small number of police officers are responsible for a very high percentage of settlements involving excessive force by police and other civil rights violations.
]]> The Daily News urged Major Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly to be more proactive in identifying the minority of officers responsible for the majority of cases.In particular, cases involving one officer, Daniel Sbarrra, cost the city more than $1.5 million. There were multiple cases involving this same officer. The cases included issues of illegal search and seizure and unjustified use of force. Racial discrimination was a problem, with allegations of both racial profiling and racial slurs.
There were no fewer than 30 civilian complaints against this officer. And yet he was promoted. This may be because it did not used to be the practice to include information about civil rights suits in officers’ personnel files.
Regardless of what gets into personnel files, however, the larger question is why officers who keep generating problems are tolerated when they keep costing the city so much.
To be sure, sometimes in government agencies the left hand does not know often enough what the right hand is doing. But the overall arc of the city’s liability exposure in civil rights suits against the NYPD is clear. In the years from 2007 to 2001, the amount of payouts by the city doubled. By 2011, it had reached $186 million.
Source: "City must stop settling suits against the NYPD just to make them disappear," New York Daily News, May 22, 2013
]]>Still, even amid sometimes conflicting details, particular cases do fit within a broader legal system. This includes tragic cases, such as the accidental police shooting of a Hofstra University student.
The case has gripped the attention of people in New York City and across the country this week.
]]> A 21-year-old woman who was a junior at the school on Long Island was the victim of a home invasion. She and her housemates became hostages to an armed intruder. This intruder was reportedly holding the woman in a headlock when a responding police officer fired his gun at the intruder.The officer fired eight times. Seven of those shots hit and killed the intruder. But one shot went awry and killed the college student.
In the aftermath of the deeply tragic shooting, members of the public raised many troubling questions. The victim's godfather, for example, asked why the police did not try to negotiate first before forcibly confronting the intruder.
It is unclear whether the police officers who responded to the house knew that the intruder was holding hostages. One expert in police procedure told media sources that if officers knew of the presence of hostages, a cautious approach would have been in order.
But another expert noted that situations such as the one at the house near Hofstra inevitably involve a balancing act. It's a fine line, after all, to know when to act decisively without acting too hastily either.
Naturally a thorough investigation is underway. In fact, there will be two: a criminal investigation and an internal police investigation.
Regardless of what the investigations show, the case is not only factually hard. Like other fatal police shooting cases, it's also emotionally hard.
Source: "Questions linger over events preceding police shooting of NY college student during standoff," The Washington Post, May 20, 2013
]]>Not surprisingly, some of the videos posted there depict police engaging in excessive use of force. And the New York City area certainly has its share of those incidents.
]]> One such video resulted from the actions of a Suffolk police officer in late March. The officer was responding to a complaint of a loud party at a house on Long Island.There was drinking and a lot of noise at the house. The police appropriately asked the large crowd at the house to disperse. But this was not a life and death situation.
In the YouTube video, however, an officer is shown grabbing a man's throat and repeatedly cursing him. The video is only 31 seconds long, so the context of the actions is not complete. But the officer appears to be trying to goad the man into attacking him. The Internal Affairs Bureau of the Suffolk police is investigating the incident.
As valuable as video evidence is, it is not always unambiguous. A case like this is a reminder of that.
The longer the video, though, the more valuable it can be as a record of what happened. That is why, as we discussed in our April 10 post, the police themselves are using cameras to record interactions with the public more widely than ever before. It started with video cams mounted on squad cars. And now it even includes miniature cameras that can be worn as part of an officer's uniform.
Evidence from such sources, however, cuts both ways. It might exonerate an officer, but it could also implicate an officer in cases of excessive force.
Source: "Suffolk Police Probe Video of Officer Choking, Shoving Man," NBC New York, Pei-Sze Cheng, 5-15-13
]]>The saying is as timely as ever, however, especially in the Bronx. Court delays in getting a day in court stretch on and on there and in other parts of New York City.
How bad is it? In felony cases, it can take as long as five years to get a court date. Delays in misdemeanor cases, such as for misdemeanor marijuana possession, are also intolerably long. When delays get this long, it becomes a civil rights issue.
]]> It’s a civil rights issue because, as the New York Times pointed out recently, gridlock in the courts undermines a basic constitutional right: the right of someone accused of a criminal offense to receive a speedy trial.One reason why the delays occur is New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy. That policy, which is being challenged in a major class-action lawsuit, has resulted in the arrest of many people for low-level marijuana possession.
The length of time spend waiting for a day in court in these low-level marijuana cases far exceeds the maximum jail time that could be imposed. It’s a curious inversion of how things are supposed to work — to spend years waiting for trial when the maximum imprisonment is three months.
This bewildering backwardness seems more like something out of Alice in Wonderland than what should happen in a place governed by the U.S. Constitution. And yet more cases continue to add to the backlog. In the Bronx alone, there are about 50,000 new misdemeanor filings every year.
Source: “In Misdemeanor Cases, Long Waits for Elusive Trials,” The New York Times, William Glaberson, 4-30-13
]]>A recent New York robbery case is merely one example of the problem. It’s a case in which a federal appeals court ruled last week that a man who has already served 19 years in prison on an armed robbery conviction must be given a new trial on one of the counts.
]]> The man’s conviction was based primarily on testimony from one eyewitness. The reason for the new trial is that the eyewitness picked the suspect out of a police lineup that was unconstitutionally tainted.The lineup was tainted, above all, because the suspect was the only person there who had also been included in a photo array shown to the witnesses earlier.
The witnesses only got a brief, fleeting, largely obstructed view of the person who committed the robbery. The perpetrator was wearing a scarf that covered his face and his body was covered with a blanket. The victim only saw this person for a few minutes, at a highly stressful moment when the person was carrying an ax and a sledgehammer.
The witness had such limited opportunity to actually see the perpetrator clearly that she was unable to help a police artist prepare a sketch of the person. When initially shown a photo of the suspect who was later convicted, the witness was unable to identify the suspect.
But police persisted and insisted that the suspect be placed in a flawed lineup.
Please visit our page on wrongful imprisonment.
Source: Courthouse News Service, “Eye Witness Flaws Spell Retrial of Robbery Case,” Adam Klasfeld, April 25, 2013
]]>Those practices are now being challenged in a major class-action lawsuit. They are widely believed to be constitutionally flawed and to flout the civil rights of those who are searched. The disproportionate impact of these stops on racial minorities has been widely documented.
But could it be, as the Post asserted this week, that stop-and-frisk is a key causal factor in driving down New York City's murder rate?
]]> The NUPD would like people to take that view. The question, however, is whether there is objective evidence to support it.It's true that the murder rate in New York City has gone down in recent years after spiking to 2,245 homicides in 1990. Last year, the overall number was down to 414.
But it is surely far too simplistic to attribute the decline to stop-and-frisk. After all, the murder rate was already going down before stop-and-frisk became NYPD policy.
Moreover, a closer look at the data suggests that the department cannot simply pull a one-dimensional lever of stop-and-frisk and make the homicide numbers go down. Over the last decade, stop-and-frisk has gone up exponentially - from fewer than 100,000 stops in 2002 to more than 685,000 last year. But homicides have gone down only slightly during that time.
In short, regardless of the media source, critical thinking is needed to evaluate claims about stop-and-frisk.
Source: "The New York Post Misleads, Again, This Time on Stop and Frisk," Huffington Post, Christopher Mathias, 4-22-13
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]]>Context like this is helpful for understanding New York City's deliberations about whether to create an inspector general position to oversee the police department. The department is currently facing a class-action lawsuit, Floyd v. City of New York challenging civil rights violations growing out of overly aggressive stop-and-frisk practices.
]]> The City Council has proposed creating the inspector general position. The mayor and the police commissioner are opposed. In a recent editorial, the New York Times opined that an inspector with proper powers could play a useful role, given the police department's repeated problems with "episodic misconduct."The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, claims that putting an inspector general in place would somehow get in the way of law enforcement. The opposite is surely true. Without proper oversight, police can overreach and commit civil rights violations that harm civilians. And inflicting unjustified harm compromises the ability of the police to properly enforce the law.
As for Mayor Bloomberg, he could of course veto the inspector general bill. But again, some context is helpful. Many other large metropolitan police forces have inspectors general for oversight purposes. So do such federal agencies as the FBI and the CIA. So why not the NYPD?
It's true that the department already has a Civilian Complaint Review Board. But that body primarily handles individual allegations of police misconduct. It does not tackle broader policy issues such as stop-and-frisk.
Source: "Monitoring New York City's Police," The New York Times, The Editorial Board, 3-27-13
Please visit our page on civil rights violations by police.
]]>Today, of course, this world seems downright quaint. Video surveillance by the government - synonymous with Orwell's notion of Big Brother - is increasingly a 24 / 7 operation.
In New York City and across the country, law enforcement officers are recording citizens' movements as never before. A few years ago, the new development was mounting cameras in squad cars so that police could record traffic stops and arrests.
]]> But now law enforcement efforts to create even more digital records have found another outlet: miniature video cameras that can be attached to a police officer's uniform collar or cap. In fact, the cameras are so small they can even fit on the side of someone's sunglasses.These cameras do not merely record arrests and traffic stops. They are constantly recording even the most straightforward interactions between police and the public. And the video evidence that results gets automatically uploaded to a central repository.
The New York Times recently profiled the use of these cameras in a Rialto, California, a city of 100,000 people. The city has teamed up with a university researcher to try to determine what effect they have. In particular, the goal is to learn whether wearing the cameras correlates with a decline in civilian complaints against police officers.
Preliminary results are that police may be less likely to use excessive force when they know they are being captured on camera. In this sense, the cameras may not represent the specter of Big Brother after all. They could become a way to keep police brutality at bay.
Source: "Wearing a Bade, and a Video Camera," The New York Times, Randall Stross, 4-6-13
Please visit our page on excessive force.
]]>In New York City and across the country, however, there are now concerns that police are far too quick on the draw with stun guns. These guns are often referred to as "tasers," after Taser International, a company that manufactures and sells them.
]]> It doesn't matter whether they are called stun guns, tasers or something else. The problem is that there have been many nasty and unjustified incidents around the nation where the guns were misused. In some of those incidents, the victims have died. In others, excessive force was used to subdue a suspect, resulting in serious injuries.In one New York City stun-gun case, an epileptic man was originally awarded $2 million in damages by a jury after officers injured him by using a stun gun. Last month, a panel of appeals court judges in Manhattan overturned that verdict. The appellate judges concluded that the force used by the police was reasonable. It was reasonable, they said, because the man was having an epileptic seizure and behaving violently.
There are often stun gun cases in New York City, however, where a subject is subdued with a stun gun even when not behaving violently. Depending on the facts of a particular, case, such use of a stun gun may be excessive force - which could give rise to a civil rights lawsuit.
Source: "Judges overturn $2M in damages awarded to man hit with stun gun in 2006," New York Daily News, Barbara Ross, 3-21-13
To learn more about our practice, please visit our page on excessive force.
]]>The lawsuit went to trial last week in federal court. Its resolution will have important implications for civil rights in New York City. And it should help clarify what tactics police are permitted to use, particularly in areas that law enforcement agencies view as having high concentrations of crime.
]]> There are four named plaintiffs in the lawsuit. One of them has been stopped four different times by the NYPD. Overall, the number of stops has escalated to a number that, even in a huge city, tends to boggle the mind. In a preliminary ruling in the Floyd case last year, U.S. District Judge Shira Sheindlin found that the department has executed more than 2.8 million stops in the last six years.The judge further noted that, according to the NYPD's own records, at least 60,000 of these stops were unconstitutional because they lacked a foundation in probable cause or any recognized exception to the basic requirement that law enforcement obtain a search warrant before searching someone. The police explanation of "furtive movement" simply does not pass constitutional muster.
The city contends that the purpose of all these stops is not to discriminate against blacks, Latinos or other minority groups. But the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit contend that the stops are often based on impermissible racial profiling.
Source: "The Stop-And-Frisk Challenge," The New Yorker, Matthew McKnight, 3-27-13
To learn more about our practice, please visit our page on illegal searches.
]]>At that point, the basic facts are in dispute. The officers claim the boy pulled a 38-caliber revolver on them. But several witnesses at the scene say the boy was simply adjusting his belt when the officers fired on him. The officers fired eleven rounds and seven of those hit the boy.
]]> Two days after the boy's death, nearly 300 people gathered for a vigil along Church Avenue, a few blocks from where the shooting occurred. Over the next couple of days, the vigil morphed into protests of the police shootings and numerous confrontations with police.The New York City Council member for the area, Jumaane D. Williams, spoke for many when he said that the protests were not only about the circumstances involved in one shooting. They were an expression of frustration with the day-to-day reality of police presence in certain neighborhoods that does far beyond one violent incident.
The council member did not directly refer to the practice of "stop and frisk" policing. But that policy, which has been widely challenged for its apparent racial profiling, is definitely a major driver behind the overwhelming sense of frustration with the police that so many New Yorkers feel.
And then there is the problematic track record of the officers involved. According to media reports, the two officers have been involved in at least five separate cases of alleged civil rights violations. And these suits have already cost the city substantial sums to settle.
Source: "Police shooting of teen sparks rage over New York City's 'stop and frisk' policy," MSNBC, Steve Frank, 3-18-13
Additional source: "Protect and Serve," The New Yorker, Rob Fischer, 3-18-13
To learn more about our practice, please visit our page on police shootings.
]]>A child can of course suffer psychological trauma in many ways. But it should not come because police officers burst into the wrong apartment and held young children at gunpoint. Yet that is what allegedly happened in a recent case.
]]> A family is suing a Chicago police officer and several other parties after police allegedly cam barging into their apartment and ordered them around while brandishing firearms. According to the complaint in the case, six minor children were involved, with one only 11 months old.The complaint asserts that officers entered the apartment wearing combat fatigues and pointing guns. They ordered everyone to hit the ground and subjected them to a torrent of profanity.
Finally, after an adult in the apartment asked the purpose of the intrusion, officers got out a search warrant. This warrant authorized a search of the second-floor apartment at a certain address.
But the police had come bursting into the first-floor apartment at that address, not the second-floor apartment. In other words, the police barged into the wrong apartment - where they proceeded to brandish guns at small children. The improper detention also included an array of abusive language.
Meanwhile, in the second-floor apartment, a 13-year-old child was home alone. Officers then allegedly engaged in a series of highly disturbing actions. These included turning off all of the lights in a room, handcuffing the child, flashing red lights at him and using profane language.
One of the officers, the complaint asserts, told the child that this is what happens when your grandmother uses crack. But the person named in the warrant, the lawsuit claims, had already been arrested when this egregious incident occurred.
Source: 'Your Grandma Sells Crack'," Courthouse News Service, 3-5-13
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