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, with the majority of stops in communities of color.

In addition to litigation efforts, CCR also works with a coalition of New York City grassroots, community-based, legal and advocacy organizations including Justice Committee, Make the Road-NY, New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Urban Justice Center.

Status

Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Class Certification November 7, 2011.

On August 31, 2011, the Judge denied most of Defendants summary judgment motion, keeping intact Plaintiffs Monell claims against the City, and many of their individual claims.

On October 26, 2010, CCR released an expert report (PDF) for Floyd. The report includes key findings such as:

• Most stops occur in Black and Latino neighborhoods, and even after adjustments for other factors including crime rates, social conditions and allocation of police resources in those neighborhoods, race is the main factor determining NYPD stops.
• Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be stopped than Whites even in areas with low crime rates, where populations are mixed or mostly White.
• Nearly 150,000 stops over the last six years are facially unconstitutional and lack any legal justification. All together, 30 percent of all stops are unconstitutional, underlining a severe lack of adequate officer oversight in the NYPD.
• Black and Latino suspects are treated more harshly in instances in which police officers make the determination that a crime has occurred. Black and Latino suspects are more likely to be arrested rather than issued a summons when compared to White suspects who are accused of the same crimes. Black and Latino suspects are more likely to have force used against them.
• The rate of gun seizures is nearly zero—0.15 out of a hundred stops—a disturbingly low return for a law enforcement tactic which the NYPD itself claims is designed specifically  to remove illegal guns from the streets.

Read a summary of the report here.

Read the full report here.

CCR Press Release 2/24/11: Stop-and-Frisks of New Yorkers in 2010 Hit All-Time High at 600,601; 87 Percent of Those Stopped Black and Latino

CCR Press Release 10/26/10: NYPD Stop and Frisk Program Based on Race not Crime

CCR Press Release 7/11/10: NY Times Investigation Exposes Police Practices

CCR Press Release 2/17/10: "New NYPD Data for 2009 Shows Significant Rise in Stop-and-Frisks: More than Half Million New Yorkers Stopped Last Year"

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, David Ourlicht, 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.

Have you been stopped by the NYPD?
We are interested in speaking to Black and Latino New Yorkers who feel that they have been improperly stopped, questioned and frisked by members of the NYPD in the last two years, and to learn more about their experiences. If you or anyone you know fits this description and would be interested in speaking to us, please ask them to contact: Sunita Patel at spatel@ccrjustice.org or Ian Head at ihead@ccrjustice.org. Please note that we are unfortunately unable to take individual cases or give individual legal advice at this time.

Floyd focuses not only on the lack of any reasonable suspicion to make these stops 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.

Video

Media Outlet Reports

• "The Truth Behind Stop and Frisk" Op-ed, New York Times, (9/2/11)

• Interactive Map of Stop and Frisk in NYC Neighborhoods, NY Times (7/12/10)

• A Few Blocks, 4 Years, 52,000 Police Stops, NY Times (7/12/10)

• "Big Brother in Blue" Bob Herbert, NY Times. (3/12/10)

• "Power to Prosecute Police Goes to Civilians. Again." (2/19/10)

• NY Times Editorial: "Lingering Questions About Stop and Frisk" (2/18/10)

• Bob Herbert on Floyd and Stops and Frisks: "Jim Crow Policing" (2/4/10)

• Low-risk frisks: Thousands of minorities are stopped, few busted (2/7/09)

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.

In November, 2009, CCR received the raw UF-250 data through the 3rd Quarter of 2009.

Fact discovery in this cased closed in August 2010.

Plaintiffs’ expert reports were submitted on October 15, 2010.

In February 2011, the City filed for partial summary judgment and we are awaiting a decision from the Court on that motion.

On August 31, 2011, the Judge denied most of the City's partial summary judgment motion.

On November 7, 2011, Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Class Certification.

On November 23, 2011, the Judge issued an Order re-instating David Floyd's claim of an illegal stop by police.