Floyd et al v City of New York et al

Synopsis

Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al. is a federal class action lawsuit filed against the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the City of New York that challenges the NYPD's practices of racial profiling and unconstitutional stop-and frisks. These NYPD practices have led to a dramatic increase in the number of suspicion-less stop-and-frisks per year in the city, especially in communities of color.

In addition to litigation efforts, CCR is also a member of the Police Accountability Coalition (PAC), a coalition of New York City grassroots, community-based, legal and advocacy organizations.  Currently, the PAC includes: CCR, The Justice Committee, Make the Road-NY, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center. 

The PAC's mission is to increase transparency and accountability of the New York Police Department to New York City communities and individuals through legislative and policy reform.  The PAC is guided by 5 principles of unity and is developing a 6 point reform package.

Status

On April 15, 2008, CCR filed an amended complaint that adds new individual plaintiffs and seeks to certify the case as a class action. The case is currently in discovery.  CCR succeeded in efforts to obtain the raw UF-250 ("stop-and-frisk") data from 1998 through June 2008.  CCR has issued a preliminary analysis of the data from 2005 through June 2008.  The City is obligated to continue to provide new data to CCR. On March 31, 2009, the City provided CCR with the raw stop-and-frisk data for the second half of 2008.  CCR is currently running a preliminary analysis of this data and plans to update the preliminary chart in the near future.  Over the next few months CCR will be working with an expert in criminal justice to complete a more substantial statistical analysis of the data.

Description

Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al. is a federal class action lawsuit filed against the New York City Police Department that charges the NYPD with engaging in racial profiling and suspicion-less stop-and-frisks of law-abiding New York City residents. According to CCR attorneys, the named plaintiffs in CCR’s case – David Floyd, Lalit Clarkson, and Deon Dennis – represent the thousands of New Yorkers who have been stopped without any cause on the way to work, in front of their house, or just walking down the street. CCR and the plaintiffs allege that the NYPD unlawfully stopped these individuals because they are men of color.

The Floyd case stems from CCR's landmark racial profiling case, Daniels, et al. v. City of New York, et al. that led to the disbanding of the infamous Street Crime Unit and a settlement with the City in 2003. The Daniels settlement agreement required the NYPD to maintain a written racial profiling policy that complies with the United States and New York State Constitutions and to provide stop-and-frisk data to CCR on a quarterly basis from the last quarter of 2003 through the first quarter of 2007. However, an analysis of the data revealed that the NYPD has continued to enagage in suspicion-less and racially pretextual stop-and-frisks.

Floyd focuses not only on the lack of any reasonable suspicion to make these stops (90 percent of the stops result in no issuance of summons or arrest) in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but also on the obvious racial disparities in who gets stopped and searched by the NYPD—90 percent of those stopped are Black and Latino, even though these two groups make up only 52 percent of the city’s population- which constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The settlement agreement from Daniels required the NYPD to maintain a written racial profiling policy that complies with the U.S. and New York State Constitutions, required the NYPD audit officers who engage in stop-and-frisks and their supervisors to determine whether and to what extent the stop-and-frisks are based on reasonable suspicion and whether and to what extent the stop-and-frisks are being documented, and it required the NYPD to provide stop-and-frisk data to CCR on a quarterly basis, among other provisions.

But after significant non-compliance with the consent decree and after new information released publicly by the City showed a remarkable increase in stop-and-frisks from 2002 to 2006, CCR decided to file this new lawsuit challenging the NYPD's racial profiling and stop-and-frisk policy.

Timeline

On January 31, 2008, CCR filed the initial complaint.

On April 15, 2008, CCR filed an amended complaint that added new individual plaintiffs and sought certification as a class action.

On April 18, 2008, CCR served discovery requests on the City, seeking production of the NYPD’s stop and frisk data going back to 1998.

On September 10, 2008, Judge Scheindlin ordered that the City of New York and the NYPD must turn over all UF-250 ("Stop and Frisk") data for the past ten years to CCR.

On October 31, 2008, CCR received the raw UF-250 data for the past ten years from the City of New York.

On January 15, 2009, CCR released its preliminary analysis of the 2005 through June 2008 UF-250 data, "Racial Disparity in NYPD Stops-and-Frisks".

On January 29, 2009, CCR staff member, Marc Krupanski, submitted testimony to the New York City Council's Public Safety Committee regarding the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practice and the Department's failure to institute discipline in CCRB substantiated cases of misconduct that stem from a stop-and-frisk.

On March 31, 2009, CCR received the raw UF-250 data for the second half of 2008 from the City of New York.

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