New York, New York

The lawsuit, Payne et al. v. Mayor Bill de Blasio et al., named both City officials and individual NYPD officers for their roles in alleged indiscriminate and unconstitutional use of force against peaceful demonstrators. In addition to monetary damages, the settlement included significant injunctive relief as part of a broader legal agreement reached in 2023 that mandated sweeping reforms. These included improved documentation and oversight of NYPD deployments at demonstrations, with compliance monitored by an independent committee.

The lawsuit, filed in 2018, alleged that the practice violated their religious rights and caused emotional distress. Clark stated that she felt “naked” and “violated” when forced to uncover. In 2020, the New York City Police Department agreed to change its policy on religious head coverings. The settlement provided compensation of up to $13,000 each for more than 3,600 similarly affected individuals who were arrested between March 2014 and August 2021.

Peets was wrongfully convicted of a 1996 shooting after New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers allegedly fabricated a story about his involvement, withheld exculpatory information about an alternative suspect, and destroyed key biological evidence. At the crime scene, one victim identified another individual as the shooter, but the NYPD released that person without further questioning and never disclosed this information to lawyers representing Peets. Officers also failed to send a bloody bullet fragment to the laboratory for testing, and then the NYPD lost the fragment. Officers Claude Staten and William Fullam also failed to disclose their prior knowledge of Peets, which may have contributed to their misidentification of Peets as the shooter. His conviction was vacated in 2022 after DNA testing on a hat believed to belong to the shooter excluded him as a match. The settlement highlighted ongoing concerns about police misconduct and the importance of discovery laws in preventing future injustices.

With certain exceptions, each person arrested or subjected to force by New York City Police Department officers during those protests would be eligible to receive $9,950 in compensation.

A report and video produced by Human Rights Watch and Situ Research documented how, on June 4, 2020, NYPD officers surrounded, assaulted, and arrested hundreds of protesters with no provocation or warning in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx.

On May 25, 2020, police, including Officer Adonis Long and Officer Shimul Saha, tried to remove Joseph T. from a subway train for allegedly taking up more than one seat. Joseph T. was arrested and charged with felony assault after officers alleged that he kicked them as they tried to handcuff him. However, body camera footage showed officers punching Joseph T., pepper-spraying him, and pushing his belongings off the train. The Manhattan District Attorney subsequently dropped the assault charges against Joseph T.

She filed a suit against the City and NYPD detectives Richard Hall and Eddie Martins in 2018, alleging unlawful arrest, false imprisonment, and sexual assault. She claimed that the officers raped her in the back of a van after she was arrested for a low-level drug offense in September 2017. Martins and Hall were arrested a month after the incident, but the charges were ultimately dropped after the prosecutors questioned the woman’s credibility. Hall and Martins later pleaded guilty in 2019 to bribery and official misconduct and were sentenced to five years of probation. In addition to her settlement with the City, Chambers also settled with Hall and Martins for an unknown amount.

NYPD Officer Vincent D’Andraia shoved Zayer to the ground during a protest in Brooklyn. Zayer was subsequently hospitalized, and she experienced a concussion and a seizure, among other serious injuries. A video of the incident went viral online, and Zayer filed a lawsuit. New York City agreed to pay $387,000 to settle the case in February 2022. In a rare move for police settlements in the United States, D’Andraia was required to personally contribute $3,000. In addition, D’Andraia faced a criminal charge of misdemeanor assault as a result of the encounter. 

Under the settlement agreement in this excessive force case, the New York City Police Department also agreed to stop the use of the high-frequency “deterrent” or “alert” tone on its long-range acoustic devices, which the department has used in the past primarily to communicate with large crowds.

A settlement agreement prohibiting the New York Police Department from removing detainees’ hijabs while in police custody was reached on November 5, 2020, nearly two years after a lawsuit was filed in 2018.

The lawsuit may also have implications for police policies in Yonkers. The 2018 lawsuit claimed that it was illegal for the NYPD to remove religious attire for mugshots. Monetary settlements for the plaintiffs have yet to be reached.

The Pagan-Alomar settlement represents only one of the multimillion-dollar settlements against the NYPD this year. In 2019, New York City spent more than $68 million in settlements in response to over 1,000 lawsuits.

The complaint, filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, alleged that former detective Fabio Nunez had placed Medina in a chokehold and tased him 13 times when responding to a noise complaint. At the time, choke holds had been banned by the police department. Since beginning as an officer, Nunez has been named in several lawsuits alleging excessive force and other forms of misconduct. After attempting to have the case dismissed, a district judge ruled that the city and NYPD officials could be held liable, leading the city to settle for $567,500.

In 2015, The Wall Street Journal released an analysis of settlement totals from instances of police misconduct among the ten largest local police departments in the nation. Many of the cases involved in the analysis involved alleged beatings, shootings, and wrongful imprisonment. The analysis determined that, between 2010 and 2014, New York City spent $601.3 million on police misconduct cases. In 2015, the city paid $5.9 million to the estate of Eric Garner, who died after being put in a police chokehold. Additionally, a report released by the New York City Comptroller’s Office disclosed that the city spent nearly $270 million to resolve police misconduct claims in fiscal years 2017 and 2018. A recent analysis of data published by the New York City Law Department, detailing information on civil actions alleging police misconduct, showed that in 2019 the city was responsible for over $68 million in payouts to resolve nearly 1,400 civil lawsuits filed against the department.