January, 20 2010, 10:04am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Will Matthews, ACLU national, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org
Jennifer Carnig, NYCLU, (212) 607-3363 or (845) 553-0349; jcarnig@nyclu.org
ACLU Lawsuit Challenges Abusive Police Practices In New York City Schools
NYPD Officers Routinely Subject Schoolchildren To Excessive Force And Wrongful Arrests
NEW YORK
New
York Police Department personnel assigned to New York City's public
schools have repeatedly violated students' civil rights through
wrongful arrests and the excessive use of force, according to a class
action federal lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties
Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and the law firm
Dorsey & Whitney LLP.
The landmark lawsuit challenges the
conduct and behavior of police officers and school safety officers
(SSOs) serving in the NYPD's School Safety Division. It was filed on
behalf of five middle school and high school students who were
physically abused and wrongfully arrested at school by NYPD personnel.
The plaintiffs seek system-wide reform in New York City's middle
schools and high schools.
"Aggressive policing is stripping
thousands of New York City students of their dignity and disrupting
their ability to learn," said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of
the NYCLU. "We all want safe schools for our children, but the current
misguided system promotes neither safety nor learning. Despite mounting
evidence of systemic misconduct by police personnel in the schools, the
NYPD refuses to even acknowledge any problems with its school policing
practices. We are confident that the courts will compel much-needed
reform."
Plaintiff Daija, 13, is an
eighth-grade student at Lou Gehrig Middle School in the Bronx. On
October 7, 2009, Daija was unlawfully arrested by SSOs following a
confrontation in front of her school initiated by two adult strangers
who had threatened her. An SSO instructed Daija to go into the school
with the strangers. Frightened, Daija told the SSO that she preferred
to wait outside for her mother who was coming to pick her up.
In response, the SSO grabbed Daija
by the arm, handcuffed her, forcefully threw her down and pinned her to
the ground. Daija sat handcuffed at a desk until her mother managed to
find her. No charges were filed against her. Daija required medical
attention as a result of the assault.
"I feel unsafe at school," said
Daija. "I'm afraid that School Safety Officers could attack me again
for no reason. I just want the school year to be over so I can be a
normal kid again. I shouldn't have to be scared of school."
The lawsuit maintains that
inadequately trained and poorly supervised police personnel engage in
aggressive behavior toward students when no criminal activity is taking
place and when there is no threat to health and safety. The police
confront and arrest students over minor disciplinary infractions such
as talking back, being late for class or having a cell phone in school.
The lawsuit documents numerous incidents in which students engaged in
non-criminal conduct were handcuffed, arrested and physically assaulted
by police personnel at school.
The aggressive policing in the
city's schools contributes to the school-to-prison-pipeline, a
disturbing national trend wherein students are funneled out of the
public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
These children tend to be disproportionately Black and Latino, and
often have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or
neglect.
"If you treat children like
criminals, they will fulfill those expectations," said Catherine Y.
Kim, staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. "Aggressive
policing in public schools undermines efforts to create a nurturing and
supportive environment for children, and without strict accountability
and transparency, too many at-risk youth fall through the cracks and
are denied equal educational opportunities."
Since the NYPD took control of
public school safety in New York City in 1998, more than 5,000 SSOs,
civilian NYPD employees assigned to the schools, and nearly 200 armed
police officers have been assigned to the city's public schools. There
are more police officers patrolling New York City schools than make up
the entire police forces in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Boston,
Baltimore, Dallas, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego or Las Vegas. The
number of police personnel assigned to patrol New York City public
schools has grown by 73 percent since the transfer of school safety to
the NYPD, even though school crime was declining prior to the 1998
transfer and even though student enrollment is at its lowest point in
more than a decade.
SSOs wear NYPD uniforms and possess
the authority to stop, frisk, question, search and arrest students.
While NYPD police officers must complete a six-month training course
before being deployed, SSOs receive only 14 weeks of training before
being assigned to schools. School administrators have no supervisory
authority over the SSOs who patrol their schools.
"When one of our clients was 11
years old, she was handcuffed and perp-walked into a police precinct
for doing nothing more than doodling on a desk in erasable ink.
Amazingly, no one in the police department or the school seemed to
think there was anything wrong with that," said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan,
senior attorney at Dorsey & Whitney and co-counsel on the case.
"It's a sad day when you need to resort to a lawsuit to keep an
11-year-old from being arrested for drawing on her desk, but in this
case it is clear there is no alternative."
From 2002 to June 2007, the NYPD
Internal Affairs Bureau received 2,670 complaints against members of
NYPD's School Safety Division - about 500 complaints annually - even
though no effective or publicized mechanism exists for lodging
complaints against school safety officers. Families that have lodged
complaints against SSOs have reported that, in response, the NYPD
simply transfers those SSOs to different public schools. Additionally,
the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates allegations of
police misconduct, has reported that the NYPD receives about 1,200
complaints a year about SSOs.
Today's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, seeks the following remedies:
A return of disciplinary decisions traditionally dealt with by school administrators to New York City's school administrators.
Mandatory training of SSOs regarding
conduct relating to arrests, searches and the use of force. Officers
must get training for working in an educational environment and must be
taught the difference between the penal code and the disciplinary code
when it comes to arresting students.
A transparent and meaningful
mechanism for students and parents to file complaints against members
of the NYPD's School Safety Division.
Revision of the policies and
procedures regarding discipline of members of the NYPD's School Safety
Division who are found to have committed abuses, including their
removal from having future contact with youth where appropriate.
A copy of today's complaint is available online at: www.aclu.org/racial-justice/bh-v-city-new-york-complaint
Additional information about the case is available online at: www.aclu.org/racial-justice/bh-v-city-new-york
Additional information about the ACLU's work to combat the school-to-prison-pipeline is available at: www.aclu.org/stpp
Additional information about the New York Civil Liberties Union is available online at: www.nyclu.org
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
As Senate Prepares for NDAA Vote, Progressive Caucus Says It Is 'Past Time' to Slash Pentagon Budget
"This legislation on balance moves our country and our national priorities in the wrong direction," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Dec 12, 2024
As Senate Democrats prepared to move forward with a procedural vote on the annual defense budget package that passed in the House earlier this week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus outlined its objections to the legislation and called for the Pentagon budget to be cut, with military funding freed up to "reinvest in critical human needs."
CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said following the passage of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2025 (H.R. 5009) that "it should alarm every American taxpayer that we are nearing a trillion-dollar annual budget for an agency rampant with waste, fraud, and abuse."
Jayapal, who was one of 140 lawmakers to oppose the package, emphasized that the Pentagon has failed seven consecutive annual audits.
Despite being the only federal agency to never have passed a federal audit, said Jayapal, the Department of Defense "continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better."
As Common Dreams reported last month, more than half of the department's annual budget now goes to military contractors that consistently overcharge the government, contributing to the Pentagon's inability to fully account for trillions of taxpayer dollars.
The $883.7 billion legislation that was advanced by the House on Wednesday would pour more money into the Pentagon's coffers. The package includes more than $500 million in Israeli military aid and two $357 million nuclear-powered attack submarine despite the Pentagon requesting only one, and would cut more than $621 million from President Joe Biden's budget request for climate action initiatives.
Jayapal noted that the legislation—which was passed with the support of 81 Democrats and 200 Republicans—also includes anti-transgender provisions, barring the children of military service members from receiving gender-affirming healthcare in "the first federal statute targeting LGBTQ people since the 1990s when Congress adopted 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and the Defense of Marriage Act."
"This dangerous bigotry cannot be tolerated, let alone codified into federal law," said Jayapal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the legislation "has some very good things we Democrats wanted in it, it has some bad things we wouldn't have put in there, and some things that were left out," and indicated that he had filed cloture for the first procedural vote on the NDAA.
The vote is expected to take place early next week, and 60 votes are needed to begin debate on the package.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime critic of exorbitant U.S. military spending, said in a floor speech on Wednesday that he plans to vote no on the budget.
"While middle-class and working-class families are struggling to survive, we supposedly just don't have the financial resources to help them," he said. "We just cannot afford to build more housing, we just cannot afford to provide quality childcare to our kids or to support public education, or to provide healthcare to all."
"But when the military industrial complex and all of their well-paid lobbyists come marching in to Capitol Hill," he continued, "somehow or another, there is more than enough money for Congress to provide them with virtually everything that they need."
Jayapal noted that the funding package includes substantive pay raises for service members and new investments in housing, healthcare, childcare, and other support for their families.
"Progressives will always fight to increase pay for our service members and ensure that our veterans are well taken care of," said Jayapal. "However, this legislation on balance moves our country and our national priorities in the wrong direction."
By cutting military spending, she said, the federal government could invest in the needs of all Americans, not just members of the military, "without sacrificing our national security or service member wages."
"It's past time we stop padding the pockets of price gouging military contractors who benefit from corporate consolidation," said Jayapal, "and reallocate that money to domestic needs."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Dems Urge Biden to Limit Presidential Authority to Launch Nuclear War Before Trump Takes Charge
"As Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, it is more important than ever to take the power to start a nuclear war out of the hands of a single individual and ensure that Congress's constitutional role is respected and fulfilled," wrote Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ted Lieu.
Dec 12, 2024
Two Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden Thursday, urging him to place more checks on potential nuclear weapons use by mandating that a president must obtain authorization from Congress before initiating a nuclear first strike.
The letter writers, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), argue that "such a policy would provide clear directives for the military to follow: A president could order a nuclear launch only if (1) Congress had approved the decision, providing a constitutional check on executive power or (2) the United States had already been attacked with a nuclear weapon. This would be infinitely safer than our current doctrine."
The two write that time is of the essence: "As Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, it is more important than ever to take the power to start a nuclear war out of the hands of a single individual and ensure that Congress's constitutional role is respected and fulfilled."
The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war (though presidents have used military force without getting the OK from Congress on multiple occasions in modern history, according to the National Constitution Center).
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons policy was produced, speed was seen as essential to deterrence, according to Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last year that makes a similar argument to Markey and Lieu.
"There is no reason today to rely on speedy decision-making during situations in which the United States might launch first. Even as relations with Moscow are at historic lows, we are worlds removed from the Cold War's dominant knife's-edge logic," he wrote.
While nuclear tensions today may not be quite as high as they were during the apex of the Cold War, fears of nuclear confrontation have been heightened due to poor relations between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, among other issues. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use not long after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long range weapons in its fight against Russia.
This is not the first time Markey and Lieu have pushed for greater guardrails on nuclear first-use. The two are the authors of the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, a proposed bill first introduced in 2017 that would bar a U.S. president from launching a nuclear first strike without the consent of Congress.
"We first introduced this act during the Obama administration not as a partisan effort, but to make the larger point that current U.S. policy, which gives the president sole authority to launch nuclear weapons without any input from Congress, is dangerous," they wrote.
In their letter, Markey and Lieu also recount an episode from the first Trump presidency when, shortly after the January 6 insurrection, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley ordered his staff to come to him if they received a nuclear strike order from Trump.
But Milley's ability to intervene was limited, according to Lieu and Markey, because his role is advisory and "the president can unilaterally make a launch decision and implement it directly without informing senior leaders." They argue this episode is a sign that the rules themselves must change.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Amnesty Urges War Crimes Probe of 'Indiscriminate' Israeli Attacks on Lebanon
"The latest evidence of unlawful airstrikes during Israel's most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers," said one campaigner.
Dec 12, 2024
Amnesty International on Thursday called for a war crimes investigation into recent Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that killed dozens of civilians, as well as a suspension of arms transfers to Israel as it attacks Gaza, the West Bank, and Syria.
In a briefing paper titled The Sky Rained Missiles, Amnesty "documented four illustrative cases in which unlawful Israeli strikes killed at least 49 civilians" in Lebanon in September and October amid an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign of invasion and bombardment that Lebanese officials say has killed or wounded more than 20,000 people.
"Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbeck city on October 21," the rights group said. "Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on October 16."
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "these four attacks are emblematic of Israel's shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law."
The September 29 attack "destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside," the report states.
"This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever," village mukhtar, or leader, Youssef Jaafar told Amnesty. "It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town."
On October 16, Israel bombed the Nabatieh municipal complex, killing Mayor Ahmad Khalil and 10 other people.
"The airstrike took place without warning, just as the municipality's crisis unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water, and medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment in other parts of southern Lebanon," Amnesty said, adding that there was no apparent military target in the immediate area.
In the deadliest single strike detailed in the Amnesty report, IDF bombardment believed to be targeting a suspected Hezbollah member killed 23 civilians forcibly displaced from southern Lebanon in Aitou on October 14.
"The youngest casualty was Aline, a 5-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pickup truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike," Amnesty said.
Survivor Jinane Hijazi told Amnesty: "I've lost everything; my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too."
As the report notes:
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an Amnesty International weapons expert and based upon its size, shape, and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a MK-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500-pound bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.
"The means and method of this attack on a house full of civilians likely would make this an indiscriminate attack and it also may have been disproportionate given the presence of a large number of civilians at the time of the strike," Amnesty stressed. "It should be investigated as a war crime."
The October 21 strike destroyed a building housing 13 members of the Othman family, killing two women and four children and wounding seven others.
"My son woke me up; he was thirsty and wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his brother," survivor Fatima Drai—who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the attack—told Amnesty.
"When he hugged his brother, I smiled and thought, I'll tell his father how our son is when he comes back," she added. "I went to pray, and then everything around me exploded. A gas canister exploded, burning my feet, and within seconds, it consumed my kids' room."
Guevara Rosas said: "These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory."
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians."
Last month, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Israel's 433-day Gaza onslaught, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the embattled enclave.
The tribunal also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes committed during and after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and over 240 others were kidnapped.
Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice is weighing a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. Last week, Amnesty published a report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
The United States—which provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—has also been accused of complicity in Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians," Guevara Rosas said. "The latest evidence of unlawful air strikes during Israel's most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers to Israel due to the risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular