New York AG Sues NYPD, De Blasio Over Treatment of George Floyd Protesters

New York state’s top law enforcement official sued New York City’s police department and Mayor Bill de Blasio over officers’ treatment of people protesting racial injustice after the death of George Floyd last May.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the civil rights lawsuit on Thursday, less than a month after the mayor vowed to adopt stricter police oversight following an internal investigation by the city that discovered widespread instances of excessive force by the New York City Police Department.

The state’s own probe found “an egregious abuse of police power” and leadership that was “unable or unwilling to stop it,” James said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan.

While it isn’t unusual for federal prosecutors to go after local police departments in civil rights cases, the lawsuit by New York pits two of the state’s most powerful Democrats against each other in court. In the suit, James seeks a ruling that would block the police from using excessive force or suppressing free speech, among other acts. She seeks a court finding that the behavior violated protesters’ First Amendment rights and asks for “systemic reforms” and a monitor to oversee the department’s policing tactics at future protests.

De Blasio said he and James were basically aligned.

“I met with Attorney General James yesterday and we have a common goal: Continue to drive major police reforms,” the mayor said in a statement, citing “major discipline reforms” he has already announced and all the recommendations in the city’s internal report.

“That work is critical and is happening right now,” he said, adding that a lawsuit and the “bureaucracy” of a monitor wouldn’t speed it up.

Patrick Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, which represents the department’s rank-and-file officers, said that police were under attack during the protests and that city leaders were to blame for any failures.

“They sent cops out to police unprecedented protests and violent riots with no plan, no strategy and no support,” Lynch said in a statement. “They should be forced to answer for the resulting chaos, instead of pointing fingers at cops on the streets and ignoring the criminals who attacked us with bricks and firebombs.”

As part of the attorney general’s inquiry, the PBA submitted extensive written testimony, including statements from injured police officers and input from Louis Anemone, a disorder control expert and former NYPD chief of department.

The NYPD said in a statement that it has “embraced the recent suggestions” from the city but rejects James’s proposed monitor as “adding another layer” that would slow “the process of continued reform.”

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