National Lawyers Guild Letter to NYPD Threatening Lawsuit Over Covering Badge Numbers

By Certified And Electronic Mail To: James E. Johnson, Esq. NYC Mayoral Independent Investigation Co-Lead Corporation Counsel of the City of New York NYC Law Department 100 Church Street, New York, NY 10007 June 2, 2020 and NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD New York City Chapter 168 Canal Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10013 Telephone: 212-679-6018 Facsimile: 212-679-6178 Website: www.nlgnyc.org Email: nlgnyc@igc.org PRESIDENT Andy Izenson VICE PRESIDENTS Tamara Bedić Alek Felstiner TREASURER Andrew Sawtelle EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Miles Ashton Elena Cohen Aaron Frishberg Elba Galvan Valeria Gheorghiu Joel R. Kupferman Matthew Main Daniel L. Meyers Milad Momeni Alex Petkanas Micah Prussack Collin Poirot Marc Ramirez Andrew Sawtelle Ann M. Schneider Dan Shockley Franklin Siegel Martin R. Stolar By Certified And Electronic Mail To: NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea New York City Police Department 1 Police Plaza, New York, NY 10038 Re: Disturbing Practice of NYPD Members of Service Covering Shield Nos. At George Floyd Demonstrations Dear Mr. Johnson and Commissioner Shea: During the recent demonstrations held in New York City in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN, a disturbing trend has emerged in which many members of the NYPD have purposefully occluded their shield numbers with black tape or other opaque material, thus rendering it impossible to discern the members’ shield numbers. This has even been done in the immediate vicinity of white-shirted supervisory personnel. See, e.g., https://twitter.com/BreezeCrypto/status/1267539350478376962?s=20 ; see also, https://twitter.com/TheIndypendent/status/1266871388624781312?s=20 . This action – in addition to being violative of Patrol Guide § 204-17 - serves to prevent aggrieved individuals from being able to identify the perpetrators of police misconduct or relevant witnesses to same, and the failure of the NYPD to stop this practice provides a sense of impunity to members of the service that they can violate demonstrators’ rights without consequence. In light of all of this, we demand that the NYPD take immediate steps to reiterate that every member of the service in uniform must at all times (and all other ___ leave their shield numbers ___ ___ identifying information) plainly visible to members of the public at all times. We further ask that we be informed of how this has been and will be accomplished ___ (by means of interim order, disciplinary action taken against violators, and / or otherwise) by the end of the day tomorrow. In addition to preventing access to the courts to those aggrieved by police misconduct (by preventing proper defendants from being identified), the failure to stop this activity also may subject the City to liability under Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Otherwise, we stand ready to seek a temporary restraining order to require that this activity be ___ ___ immediately stopped so that demonstrators in this City may exercise their First Amendment rights safely and without fear. We thank you both for your consideration in this matter. Sincerely yours, Representatives from New York City Law Schools ___Representatives from Susan C. Howard Executive Director _________________________ cc: NY State Attorney General Letitia James Mayor Bill DeBlasio Public Advocate Jumaane Williams NYC Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez Speaker of the NYC Counsel Corey Johnson Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett Andy Izenson President, NLG-NYC