September, 06 2013, 03:55pm EDT
Stop and Frisk Attorneys Urge Court to Reject City's Attempt to Stay Reforms
Today, in Floyd v. City of New York, a federal class action lawsuit that successfully challenged the New York City Police Department's (NYPD) stop-and-frisk practices, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel Beldock, Levine & Hoffman, LLP and Covington & Burling, LLP filed their opposition to the City's request that steps to remedy the unconstitutional stops be stayed. Last month, in a landmark decision following a nine-week trial, Judge Shira A.
WASHINGTON
Today, in Floyd v. City of New York, a federal class action lawsuit that successfully challenged the New York City Police Department's (NYPD) stop-and-frisk practices, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel Beldock, Levine & Hoffman, LLP and Covington & Burling, LLP filed their opposition to the City's request that steps to remedy the unconstitutional stops be stayed. Last month, in a landmark decision following a nine-week trial, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled that the highly controversial stop-and-frisk practices violate New Yorkers' Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against racial discrimination. Since that ruling, David Ourlicht, one of the Floyd plaintiffs, has been illegally stopped a fourth time by NYPD officers. To remedy the widespread constitutional violations, the judge ordered a court-appointed monitor to oversee a series of reforms to NYPD policing practices and also ordered a Joint Remedial Process that will solicit input from a variety of stakeholders, including New York communities most directly affected by policing.
"The City's attempt to delay the remedy process is part of the same pattern of obstinacy it has shown over more than a decade in response to efforts by activists, legal organizations, and affected communities to get the NYPD to comply with the Constitution," said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Darius Charney.
Co-counsel Jonathan Moore of the firm of Beldock Levine & Hoffman, LLP, said: "The people have spoken, the legislature has spoken, and the courts have spoken. Everyone but the mayor and the police department agrees--it is long past time for change. And it is long past time for Mr. Bloomberg and the NYPD to get on board with that change."
On June 27, 2013, the New York City Council passed two bills as part of the Community Safety Act (CSA). The CSA is a significant police reform package aimed at ending discriminatory policing and increasing NYPD accountability. On July 23, Mayor Bloomberg vetoed both bills. On August 22, the City Council overrode both vetoes. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Public Advocate Bill De Blasio have both filed legal papers urging Judge Scheindlin to reject the mayor's request for a stay.
"As today's filing demonstrates, it is the people living in this City, who have suffered for so long from the NYPD's massive violations of their constitutional rights - and not the City itself - who will be harmed by the stay sought by the City," said Eric Hellerman of co-counsel Covington & Burling.
Today's filing is available here.
The Floyd case, filed in 2008, stems from the earlier 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. For more information on the case, visit www.ccrjustice.org/floyd.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
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UN Chief Warns of Israel's Syria Invasion and Land Seizures
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
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The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
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In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
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When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
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