Court Rules NYPD Must Turn Over Racial Data On Police Shootings

Sankofa*

Although I am pleased about the board taking a look into this data, can we rely that this data is accurate? And what will be the result of such information.
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A state appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court decision ordering the New York Police Department to turn over years of data identifying the race of suspects shot at by the police.

The New York Civil Liberties Union began trying to collect the data after the Sean Bell shooting in Jamaica, Queens, in 2006. After the group filed a lawsuit, the police turned over data on the race of suspects shot by the police from 1997 through 2008, but not that of suspects whom the police fired at but missed.

In December, Justice Joan A. Madden of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of the civil liberties group. The department appealed. The police argued that the shooting reports, because they could potentially be used in disciplinary proceedings against the police officers, amounted to personnel records, which are exempt from disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. But on Tuesday, a five-member appeals panel upheld the earlier decision.

The panel said that because the Police Department had turned over one category of data to the group, the police had “waived their right” to claim exemptions from releasing the additional data.

“Even were we to find that there was no waiver,” the panel wrote, “the record nonetheless demonstrates that the reports can be redacted to adequately protect their confidential nature.”

City officials said they were disappointed in the ruling.

“The Police Department has for as long as anyone can remember provided publicly, to the media, the race of individuals shot by police within hours of each shooting incident,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said in a statement. “This decision requires the police to provide the race of individuals that the police fired at but missed; data which we have not always recorded.”

In its lawsuit, the group presented testimony from a former police chief who said former Police Commissioner Howard Safir ordered the department to stop including the race of those killed by officers in police shooting statistics. The testimony did not say why Mr. Safir made the decision, but the change followed the public outcry over race and the department’s use of force following the 1999 death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed in the Bronx in a hail of bullets fired by police.

“Ever since the Diallo shooting, the department has hidden from public view the race of shooting targets,” Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Today’s decision assures that that information will be public, which we believe is important in assessing the role of race in police shootings.”



Here are som examples of headlines of unjust police shootings.
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Minorities in New York and across the country, though, have the right to know whether their police are up to the job.

Before there was Sean Bell, there was Patrick Dorismond a security guard shot to death by undercover New York police in 2000 under questionable circumstances.

Before Dorismond, there was Amadou Diallo (pictured below), an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed by Bronx police in 1999 under questionable circumstances.




- Judge Acquits Detectives in 50-Shot Killing of Bell
By MICHAEL WILSON

Three detectives were found not guilty in the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, who died on his wedding day in a hail of police bullets.

April 26, 2008


- 3 Detectives Are Indicted in 50-Shot Killing in Queens
By AL BAKER

Two of the detectives were charged with second-degree manslaughter and a third with the lesser charge of reckless endangerment.

March 17, 2007


- 50 Bullets, One Dead, and Many Questions
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and AL BAKER

There was no early mention of a fourth man, and some officers said they did not remember firing, according to a report.

December 11, 2006


- Police Kill Man After a Queens Bachelor Party
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Hours before he was to be married, a man leaving his bachelor party at a strip club was shot and killed in a hail of police bullets.

November 26, 2006



- Police Kill Man After a Queens Bachelor Party
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Hours before he was to be married, a man leaving his bachelor party at a strip club was shot and killed in a hail of police bullets.

November 26, 2006

- When Police Put Their Own on Trial
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

A wood-paneled room on the fourth floor of One Police Plaza is where the New York City police punish or exonerate their own.

May 29, 2008


- Eleanor Bumpurs (August 22, 1918 - October 29, 1984) was an African-American woman who was shot dead by police officers called to assist her city-ordered eviction from her apartment in the Bronx on October 29, 1984. The New York City Housing Authority was evicting her because she was four months behind in her rent of $96.85 per month.

In requesting NYPD assistance, housing authority workers told police that Bumpurs was emotionally disturbed, had threatened to throw boiling lye, and was using a knife to resist eviction. When Bumpurs refused to open the door, police broke in. In the struggle to subdue her, one officer shot Bumpurs twice with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Two supervisors in the city's Social Services administration were later demoted for failing to seek an emergency rent grant for Bumpurs and for not getting her proper psychiatric aid.

Trial of officer Sullivan

Sullivan waived his right to a jury trial, choosing a bench trial before a judge only. The trial opened on January 12, 1987, over two years after Bumpurs' death. The trial hinged on whether Sullivan had used excessive force, especially in firing twice at Bumpurs. His fellow officers testified that Bumpurs was still not immobilized after the first blast hit her hand, and therefore still posed a threat to the police. In addition, two doctors testified that Bumpurs could have still made stabbing motions even after her hand had been injured by the first shotgun blast.

Verdict

On February 26, 1987 Judge Fred W. Eggert acquitted Sullivan on the charges of manslaughter. On August 4, 1987 federal prosecutors declined to investigate the Bumpurs case. Rudy Giuliani who was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan at the time, stated that he had found "nothing indicating that the case was not tried fully, fairly and competently", and that there was no "proof of a specific intent to inflict excessive and unjustified force."


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