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New York City: Protest Leader Targeted In Police Raid

The failed NYPD raid that brought riot cops, police dogs and helicopters to a prominent Black Lives Matter activist's home on Friday was sparked by his alleged crime of shouting into an officer's ear with a megaphone nearly two months ago. Derrick Ingram, the 28-year-old co-founder of the Warriors in the Garden collective, said he awoke to cops with the NYPD's warrant squad banging at his door at 7 a.m. on Friday. For the next five hours, dozens of officers — stationed outside Ingram's apartment in Hell's Kitchen, on his fire escape and in a neighboring unit — urged him to surrender, claiming they had a warrant, but declining to provide one.

Current NYPD Officers With The Most Substantiated Misconduct Complaints

Approximately four thousand of the NYPD’s 36,000 active officers have at least one substantiated complaint of police misconduct, according to data from the Civilian Complaint Review Board published by ProPublica on Sunday. Gothamist/WNYC has identified seven officers in the CCRB’s data set with substantiated allegations in at least six separate complaints—the most of all current NYPD officers. All enjoyed high-ranking positions as of last month, according to the dataset. All are white men. Some have been the subject of extensive news coverage. We have reached out to each officer named here individually and through their unions. Some did not reply and others referred us to the NYPD or their union.

Video: NYPD Officers Throwing Protest Leader Into Unmarked Van

NYPD officers dragged a protest leader into an unmarked minivan van and doused onlookers with pepper spray during an anti-police brutality march in Manhattan on Tuesday night. The individual, who friends identified as an 18-year-old trans woman named Nicki, was grabbed from the group by plainclothes officers at 25th Street and Second Avenue. Video shows a man in an orange shirt marked "Warrant Squad" helping to push the woman into a silver KIA minivan before driving away.  Witnesses said the arrest came as roughly 200 people were leaving a small plaza on 26th Street where they had stopped for a skateboarding event, amid a planned 24-hour demonstration against the NYPD and the raid of City Hall earlier this month. "Suddenly there was an unmarked grey van that moved out in front of us that had been waiting for us," said Derrick, a 32-year-old protester, who declined to give his last name. "Four guys jumped out and a line of police bicycles came out from down the block...

Thousands Of Police Discipline Records Kept Secret For Decades Published

Until last month, New York state prohibited the release of police officers’ disciplinary records. Civilians’ complaints of abuse by officers were a secret. So were investigators’ conclusions. The public couldn’t even know if an officer was punished. Today, we are making this information public and, with it, providing an unprecedented picture of civilians’ complaints of abuse by NYPD officers as well as the limits of the current system that is supposed to hold officers accountable. We’ve published a database that lets you search the police complaints so you can see the information for yourself. Data experts can also download the data.

NYPD Officers Arrest And Pepper Spray Queer Liberation March Protesters

NYPD officers arrested and pepper-sprayed protesters at the Queer Liberation March Sunday afternoon while attempting to arrest two people for graffiti, according to witnesses. Numerous videos shared on social media show a crowd of officers shoving outraged protesters where arrests were being made near Washington Square Park. As two were being arrested for graffiti, protesters intervened in an attempt to free them, at which point police responded with pepper spray, multiple witnesses told Gothamist. A legal observer said at least four people were arrested and 10 others pepper-sprayed—including someone running a fruit stand nearby protesters.

NYPD Enforcement Of Low-Level Offenses Accounts For Huge Department Expenditures, Racial Disparities

New York City criminalizes drugs and low-level broken windows offenses at a startling rate, with enforcement in these areas accounting for a vast proportion of the NYPD’s policing activities and the city’s budget, according to a new brief from Drug Policy Alliance. DPA released the brief in support of the Communities United for Police Reform coalition call for Mayor de Blasio and the NYC Council to cut the FY21 NYPD expense budget by $1 billion and redirect savings to core needs in Black, Latinx and other NYC communities of color that have long been the target of the drug war and racist policing.  The brief, “NYC’s Costly Drug Enforcement & Broken Windows Policing,” finds that in 2019, NYC spent an estimated $96 million enforcing drug arrests and violations, and an estimated $456 million enforcing low-level broken windows offenses, which accounted for 28.5% of all NYPD arrests and violations issued for the year. 

NYPD Accused Of Deliberately Targeting Legal Observers

On Thursday evening before curfew, Rex Santus was standing alone on a quiet Mott Haven street corner when he caught the attention of NYPD officers passing in an unmarked minivan. As eight officers surrounded him, the 28-year-old CUNY law student identified himself as a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, and explained his intention to monitor a nearby protest against racist police brutality. The officers accused him of “illegal counter-surveillance against police,” Santus said. They seized his notebook, reading from it and mocking him for writing that some cops had obscured their badge numbers. As the officers feigned ignorance about the role of legal observers, Santus recalled, an apparent warning blared from their police radios: “A lot of LOs out tonight.”

When Prosecutors Bury NYPD Officers’ Lies

On a late March night in 2016, Jeremy Turnbull stood outside a friend’s apartment building in the Bronx’s Morris Heights neighborhood. Turnbull, then 25 years old, was frustrated. He had taken a cab to pick up his girlfriend and persuaded the driver to wait until she came outside. As Turnbull paced in front of the building, an unmarked police car approached. What happened next is disputed by defense attorneys and police. Police told prosecutors they approached the cab because it was double parked. Officer Valdrin Niqki said that when he got out of his patrol vehicle, he saw a bulge in Turnbull’s leather jacket—from 10 feet away.

After Nationwide Calls For Justice And Family’s Tireless Advocacy, NYPD Fires Officer Who Killed Eric Garner

Civil rights advocates on Monday applauded the family of Eric Garner for their tireless advocacy over the past five years, as the NYPD announced that Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Garner in 2014, had been fired. A number of observers also made clear that Pantaleo's firing—after five years of sustained pressure and a number of failures by the justice system to hold the officer accountable—must mark the beginning of a new era of social justice reform. Garner's daughter Emerald spoke shortly after the announement, expressing thanks for Pantaleo's long-awaited dismissal, but pledging, "the fight is not over."

Democratic Debate Interrupted By Protesters Calling For Firing Of NYPD Officer Who Killed Eric Garner

The opening statements at Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate in Detroit were interrupted by demonstrators protesting the death of Eric Garner and NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold killed the 43-year-old black man in 2014. During New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s opening remarks, the protesters began shouting “Fire Pantaleo!” The shouts grew louder a few moments later as Sen. Cory Booker spoke. “Last week, the president of the United States attacked an American city, calling it a disgusting, rat-infested, rodent mess,”...

NYPD Apologizes For 1969 Raid Of Stonewall Inn

NEW YORK — Nearly 50 years after a police raid at the Stonewall Inn catalyzed the modern LGBT rights movement, New York’s police commissioner apologized Tuesday for what his department did. “The actions taken by the NYPD were wrong, plain and simple,” Commissioner James O’Neill said during a briefing at police headquarters. “The actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive,” he added. “And for that, I apologize.” The apology comes weeks ahead of the milestone anniversary of the raid and the rebellion it sparked the night of June 27-28, 1969...

Activist, Who Says NYPD Officers Tried To Frame Him, Gets $860,000 Settlement

In the summer of 2016, activist Jose LaSalle was arrested after he recorded video of police stopping and frisking two men in the Bronx. On a secret recording provided by LaSalle, NYPD officers in the PSA 7 stationhouse can be heard cheering and accusing him of having committed a felony. But LaSalle, who founded the South Bronx Copwatch Patrol Unit, may be having the last laugh. His lawyer says the city and the NYPD agreed to pay LaSalle $860,000 after he accused the police of false arrest, imprisonment, and conspiracy.

NYPD Surveilled Of Black Lives Matter Protesters And Keeps Their Records

It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2015. Black Lives Matter protests were still erupting across the country, and M.J. Williams, a lawyer and activist, was excited to get more involved. The month before, Williams had started to attend weekly protests at New York City’s Grand Central Station. That day, she was at Foley Square, and activists from the group organizing the weekly demonstrations had invited her to join them in a small, nonpermitted march up to Grand Central. The march hadn’t been publicized on social media, and organizers intended to take authorities by surprise.

NYPD Must Release Records On Cell Phone Monitoring Of Protesters

In a strongly worded opinion addressing New York’s Freedom of Information Law, a Manhattan Supreme Court justice has ruled that the New York City Police Department must release information to a police protest group about whether the department used technology to monitor or interrupt their cellphones during protests. The decision from Justice Arlene Bluth could have wider implications for the NYPD’s use of devices such as Stingrays, which mimic cell towers and intercept communications, and it comes after the NYPD had given a so-called “Glomar response”—essentially a nonresponse—to the group’s FOIL request for information about surveillance of their social media activity and cellphones.

Muslim Groups Awarded Damages Over Discriminatory NYPD Surveillance

“We have been down similar roads before. Jewish Americans during the Red Scare, African Americans during the civil rights movement, and Japanese Americans during World War II are examples that readily spring to mind.” The New York Police Department reached a settlement with Muslim-owned businesses, mosques, student groups, and others it subjected to discriminatory and suspicionless surveillance. As part of the settlement, businesses and mosques that were spied upon by the NYPD will receive damages for income lost as a result of the stigma and humiliation they suffered “for being targeted on the basis of their religion.” The settlement marks the culmination of a lawsuit, Hassan v. City of New York, that was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Muslim Advocates in 2012, following several Pulitzer Prize-winning reports from the Associated Press on surveillance against Muslim Americans by the NYPD.

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