Author: BXD
Bronx DA Agrees to Property Seizure Reforms in Response to Bronx Defenders Lawsuit
Contact: media@bronxdefenders.org July 26, 2016, New York – The City of New York and The Bronx Defenders have requested a six-month stay of the federal class action lawsuit Encarnacion v. City of New York after the Bronx District Attorney’s Office agreed to implement a series of reforms to ensure the NYPD promptly releases personal property […]
NYPD Body-Worn Camera Policy Questionnaire
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The Bronx Defenders’ Perspective on Police Body-Worn Cameras
The essence of any police body-worn camera program should be the need for increased police accountability. Economically marginalized communities, particularly communities of color, have long been over-policed, subjecting their residents to degrees of state oversight and intervention that would never be tolerated in suburban communities. Examples of this have included so-called “broken windows policing,” recently discredited […]
NYPD Asks New Yorkers to Weigh in on Body-Worn Camera Policy
The New York Police Department (NYPD) is planning a large body-worn camera (BWC) experiment involving 1,000 cameras at precincts all over the City, and is seeking public input to develop the policies that will guide officers using the cameras. This pilot program emerged in part from the class action lawsuits in which the court found the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk […]
Ligon v. City of New York
Filed on March 28, 2012, this federal class action lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of Operation Clean Halls, a part of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program that allows police officers to patrol thousands of private apartments buildings across New York City. As far back as the early 1990s, Operation Clean Halls has enabled police officers to patrol […]
Trowbridge v. DiFiore
On August 9, 2018, The Bronx Defenders along with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, LLP and Morrison & Foerster, LLP secured a settlement in Trowbridge v. DiFiore on behalf of New Yorkers who are affected by systematic delays in the processing of misdemeanor cases in the Bronx. According to the terms of the agreement, the […]
Encarnacion v. City of New York
The NYPD routinely confiscates cash, cell phones, and other personal property from people arrested in New York—particularly impacting people in the low-income communities targeted by broken windows policing, who can least afford it. A City budget document states that NYPD retained $7 million in unclaimed cash and property auction proceeds as revenue in fiscal […]
NYPD faces class-action lawsuit over civil forfeitures from people arrested and later released
“The NYPD’s practice of refusing to release money and property allegedly tied to criminal activity is slated to become the subject of a federal class action lawsuit. A Bronx law firm, which sued the city in January over its civil forfeiture policy, amended the complaint Friday to add more plaintiffs who said they were unable […]
Class-Action Lawsuit Will Challenge NYPD’s Use Of Civil Forfeiture To Rob Innocent New Yorkers
“Kaleb Hagos was arrested by police on September 23rd, 2015, and had $2,931.68 in cash confiscated, along with an iPhone he was carrying in his pocket. Since then, the case against him has been terminated, and his lawyers at the Bronx Defenders have repeatedly tried to retrieve his phone and money—but to date, the Bronx […]
Lawsuit Challenges NYPD’s Policy of Unlawfully Keeping People’s Cash and Property
Contact: media@bronxdefenders.org The Bronx Defenders Seeks Class Cert. in Property Retrieval Suit June 3rd, 2016, New York – The Bronx Defenders filed an amended complaint today in Encarnacion v. City of New York, and will ask a federal judge to grant class certification in their lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s unconstitutional practice of retaining people’s property […]