Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al. is a federal class action lawsuit

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Floyd et al v City of New York et al

http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/floyd%2C-et-al.-v.-city-new-york%2C-et-al.

Synopsis

Lalit Clarkson, a plaintiff in CCR's class action suit against the NYPD’s stop and search policy, stands outside the bodega on 169th street in the Bronx where he was stopped by police. Jonah

Engle 2009.

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.

Status

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"

The case is currently in discovery. The City is set to release the data on reported stops and frisks for the final quarter of 2009 in February 2010.

In August 2009, CCR received raw arrest and reported crime data from the NYPD, for the years

2004-2008, which will permit our statistical expert to analyze the validity of the NYPD’s claim that the racial disparities in whom the NYPD stops and frisks mirrors the racial demographics of criminal suspects in New York City. To date, no one outside of the police department has ever been able to systematically analyze that claim.

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 suspicionless 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.

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-andfrisk policy.

In 2008, the Center for Constitutional Rights produced a preliminary report on the NYPD's behavioral trends during Stop and Frisk procedures. The report is available as a PDF download . Additional information, analysis, and reporting can be found on our site at http://ccrjustice.org/stopandfrisk .

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

.

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 case is scheduled to close on April 1, 2010.

Plaintiffs’ expert reports will be submitted on June 1, 2010.

Plaintiffs expect to move for class certification in early 2010.

Attached Files

 CCR's Report on NYPD Stop and Frisk Statistics

Floyd_Complaint_08.01.31.pdf

 Floyd_AmendedComplaint_08.04.15.pdf

Judge Scheindlin Order re UF-250 Data. 9 10 2008.pdf

 CCR Krupanski Statement to Public Safety Committee 1-29-09.pdf

 2008 Report on NYPD Racial Profiling & Brutality to UN SR on Racism.pdf

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