Civil Rights Organizations Condemn NYPD’s Violations of Court-Ordered Reforms Following Independent Monitor’s Latest Report

Read a PDF of our statement here.

Media Contact:
LDF Media Office, [email protected]
Audrey Martin, [email protected], 774-266-5233

(NEW YORK, NY) - Last night, the Independent Federal Monitor (Monitor) of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released a report finding that the NYPD has failed to comply with court-ordered mandates to reform its stop, question, and frisk and trespass enforcement practices.

In 2013, a federal court appointed an independent monitor to oversee reforms ordered in Floyd v. City of New York. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and Legal Aid Society (LAS) represent the plaintiffs in a related federal class action lawsuit, Davis v. City of New York, which challenged the NYPD's racially discriminatory and unconstitutional stop-and-frisk and trespass enforcement practices of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents and their guests. The settlement reached in the Davis case has been incorporated by court order into the monitorship ordered in the Floyd case.

The Monitor's latest report identifies a number of ways in which the NYPD is not in compliance with the court-ordered reforms:

• Eleven years into the federal monitorship, the NYPD is still not monitoring Fourteenth Amendment compliance, despite the federal court's finding that its stop-and-frisk practices violate the Fourteenth Amendment rights of Black and Latino New Yorkers.
• NYPD officers failed to submit required reports in 31.4% of stops audited by the Monitor, demonstrating a failure to comply with a fundamental component of the court-ordered reforms.
• Unconstitutional reported stops increased from 10.6% of stops in 2021 to 11.3% in 2022.
• Unconstitutional frisks increased over 50% between 2021 and 2022, from 15.8% to 23.9%
• Unlawful searches increased nearly 50%, from 20.4% in 2021 to 29.9% in 2022.
• Specialized units, such as the Neighborhood Safety Teams (NST) which has drawn significant criticism for policing practices that harm Black and Latino New Yorkers, were found by the Monitor to engage in the majority of unlawful stops, frisks, and searches.
• The NYPD's non-compliance continued into the first quarter of 2023, based on the existing data analyzed by the Monitor.

In response to this report, the Legal Defense Fund and Legal Aid Society issued the following statements:

"It has been over a decade since a federal court found that the NYPD was violating the rights of Black and Latino New Yorkers through its stop, question and frisk practices, and the Department still has not remedied these violations," said Charles McLaurin, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. "Full compliance with the reforms ordered by the court should be the utmost priority for the NYPD to avoid future constitutional violations. And yet officers fail to report their encounters with New Yorkers and continue to abuse their authority by taking law enforcement actions beyond the bounds of the law. The NYPD must be held accountable for its mistreatment of New Yorkers, especially the Black and Latino New Yorkers who bear the brunt of this unlawful conduct. The Monitor's report demonstrates how the NYPD has a long way to go to bring its stop and frisk and trespass enforcement practices into compliance with the Constitution and the federal monitorship to an end."

"The NYPD's years-long failure to end the unconstitutional stops, frisks, and searches used to harass and abuse Black and brown New Yorkers is an absolute disgrace. The fact that the Department has done so little over the course of a decade to effect court-ordered reforms is inexcusable, and shows an utter lack of concern for the rights, dignity, and humanity of people of color. NYPD leadership must commit to ending its racist and unconstitutional stop-and-frisk practices immediately, and must hold NYPD members at all levels accountable to this goal," said Jennvine Wong, supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society.

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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation's first civil rights law organization. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957-although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.

The Legal Aid Society exists for one simple yet powerful reason: to ensure that New Yorkers are not denied their right to equal justice because of poverty. For over 145 years, we have protected, defended, and advocated for those who have struggled in silence for far too long. Every day, in every borough, The Legal Aid Society changes the lives of our clients and helps improve our communities. www.legalaidnyc.org

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