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Shaun King Exposes The NYPD's History of Unlawful Arrests & Talks Soul Snatchers
Shaun King on Ebro in the morning discusses Soul Snatchers, Soul Snatchers: How the NYPD’s 42nd Precinct, the Bronx DA’s Office, and the City of New York Conspired to Destroy Black and Brown Lives
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New York City to Pay Up to $75 Million Over Dismissed Summonses
By BENJAMIN WEISERJAN. 23, 2017
A New York police officer in July. The city has agreed to pay up to $75 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the Police Department of issuing hundreds of thousands of criminal summonses that were found to be without legal justification. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
New York City has agreed to pay up to $75 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit that accused its Police Department of issuing hundreds of thousands of criminal summonses that were later found to be without legal justification, according to a signed copy of the proposed deal filed on Monday.
The summonses had been issued for typically minor offenses, like disorderly conduct, trespassing and drinking in public — quality-of-life concerns that had been a major theme of policing in New York for two decades or so.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs had asserted that the summonses were part of a policy that was “selectively and disproportionately enforced in minority communities.” That claim was also a focus of earlier lawsuits that had challenged the department’s policing philosophy that relied on stop, question and frisk encounters.
The city’s use of stop-and-frisk as a crime-prevention strategy ended in 2013 after a class-action suit resulted in a sweeping decision that found that the city had engaged in a “policy of indirect racial profiling” in minority communities. In announcing three years ago that the city had agreed to reforms, Mayor Bill de Blasio said stop-and-frisk had “unfairly targeted young African-American and Latino men.”
The proposed settlement filed on Monday was seen by lawyers for the plaintiffs as another repudiation of a city policing policy. It covers at least 900,000 summonses, issued from 2007 to 2015, that were dismissed on grounds of legal insufficiency, which a federal judge later found was “tantamount to a decision that probable cause was presumptively lacking.”
The lawsuit, filed in 2010, alleged that under an unlawful “pattern and practice” enforced by city officials, police officers were told to issue summonses “regardless of whether any crime or violation” had occurred in order to meet a minimum quota requirement — an allegation the city explicitly denied in the proposed deal.
But under the settlement, the city agreed to send out departmentwide notifications to reiterate its policy that quotas and numerical performance goals were banned, that supervisors who put them in place could be subject to disciplinary action and that officers who believed they had been threatened or retaliated against for failing to comply with a quota should notify the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
“Quotas for arrests, summonses or stops have never been used by the N.Y.P.D.,” J. Peter Donald, a police spokesman, said in a statement on Monday. “The department measures success based on the prevention and reduction of crime.”
The settlement could be nearly double the $41 million that the city paid to five men in 2014 to resolve the so-called Central Park jogger lawsuit, concerning their overturned convictions in the 1989 beating and rape of a woman. But the amount is less than the $98 million settlement (not including legal fees) reached that same year in a discrimination case against the Fire Department.
Because of the large number of potential claims — the 900,000 summonses represent about one-quarter of all such summonses issued during the period — the deal lays out a process of notifying people who are eligible for compensation, which has been set at a maximum of $150 per person per incident.
The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Sharif L. Stinson, received summonses in March 2010 in the Bronx for disorderly conduct and trespassing. They were later dismissed by a judge for being “legally insufficient.” Ruth Fremson/The New York Times The city would set aside $56.5 million for those people, and individual payments could be lowered, depending on how many claims were made. (The number of potential claimants is expected to grow because the settlement will also cover such summonses issued after 2015.) Any settlement funds not paid out would revert to the city, which would also pay $18.5 million in attorneys’ fees.
Zachary W. Carter, the city’s corporation counsel, said in a statement that the agreement was “a fair resolution” for members of the class-action lawsuit and was also “in the best interests of the city.”
Mr. Carter added, “This settlement reflects the remarkable progress the N.Y.P.D. has made to ensure that summonses are properly drafted and include sufficient details to document probable cause.”
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Joshua P. Fitch, said he hoped the agreement represented “one step in the direction of having the Police Department truly serve the community, versus operating in an us-versus-them mentality.”
The deal needs to be approved by a judge, Robert W. Sweet of United States District Court in Manhattan, after a hearing.
The Police Department maintained in the agreement that it was already making changes in the summons process well before the settlement, with steps like Justice Reboot, a program announced in 2015 by Mayor de Blasio and Jonathan Lippman, who was the state’s chief judge at the time. The program included a provision to revise the summons form to allow officers to write down more details about an incident so that fewer summonses were later dismissed.
“New training and technological advances have reduced the percentage of summonses dismissed as ‘facially insufficient’ every year since 2011,” Mr. Donald, the police spokesman, said. He added that a revised officer evaluation program “measures overall performance standards and does not unduly rely on the level of enforcement activity.”
Potential claimants will be notified through the mail, in advertisements in English- and Spanish-language newspapers, and online, a court filing says. The plaintiffs’ law firms that will share the legal fees are Cohen & Fitch; Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan; and the Law Offices of Jon L. Norinsberg.
A former federal judge, John S. Martin Jr., served as a mediator in helping the parties reach the settlement.
The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Sharif L. Stinson, received two summonses in March 2010 in the Bronx for disorderly conduct and trespassing, Mr. Fitch, the plaintiff lawyer, said in an interview in 2015. Both tickets were later dismissed by a judge for being “legally insufficient.” The summons for disorderly conduct accused Mr. Stinson, who was then 19, of using “obscene language and gestures, causing public alarm,” but did not specify what the offensive language and behavior had been, Mr. Fitch said.
The trespassing ticket said Mr. Stinson had entered and stayed in a building “without permission or authority,” but he had his aunt’s permission to be there, Mr. Fitch said.
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Shaun King Shares His New Series On The NYPD Corruption Cases
Shaun King has started a new series highlighting the corruption inside New York City’s NYPD’s false arrest cases.
Just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, the city of New York filed a police corruption case named Stinson vs. New York.
The NYPD paid out $75 million in police corruption and false arrest. The number of false arrests made amounted to 900,000. This story barely saw any media coverage because of the inauguration.
In his investigation, King found and talked with people who had been arrested 10, 20 and even 50 times.
King explained, “12 incredibly brave Black and Hispanic officers filed a lawsuit last year that is the most important lawsuit ever filed against the NYPD.” The lawsuit states that these officers were forced to have “arrest quotas” and would be harassed and locked out of promotions if they did not meet it. Police quotas are illegal in all states.
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