Human Rights Watch — “NY Attorney General Sues Police for Violence Against Protesters”
January 15th 2021New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit yesterday against the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and its leadership for failing to address longstanding patterns of abuse, as well as using excessive force and making false arrests during racial justice protests that began last summer.
In September, SITU Research and Human Rights Watch produced a video analysis of one of the dozens of incidents covered in the lawsuit: the NYPD’s June 4 planned assault on protesters in Mott Haven, a low-income, majority Black and brown neighborhood in the South Bronx that has long experienced police brutality and systemic racism. The video reveals how the NYPD – with no provocation or warning – surrounded, trapped, assaulted, and arrested over 250 protesters. The work built upon the work of organizations like Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Communities United for Police Reform, the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and many others that have been documenting NYPD abuse for decades.
Read the article here.
