Latest news with #CivilRightsLaw
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Police misconduct in NY: What are your questions about finding records in your hometown?
Until very recently, you wouldn't have been able to find out if an officer in your New York community was routinely crashing their car or approaching their jobs with neglect or incompetence. But a part of New York's Civil Rights Law was repealed in 2020, making records of this kind of misconduct — and the internal discipline that may or may not follow — accessible to the public. You can request these records yourself through a public records request, or explore a public database of thousands of these records compiled by the USA TODAY Network over the last five years. Whether you're someone who's familiar with the public records process or someone who didn't even know these documents existed, we're here to answer your questions and help you find records you're interested in. What do you want to know about how to find police records in your New York hometown? Are you unsure which records are obtainable through New York's Freedom of Information Law? Do you have a specific person, place or type of misconduct you're searching for? Fill out the form below and your submission will go to our team of USA TODAY Network reporters covering police accountability. This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Police misconduct: Submit your questions about New York police records
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Our 5-year fight to publish NY's police misconduct records, and what we've found so far
Five years ago, I led a charge to obtain details of police misconduct from hundreds of police departments across New York, made legally public in the state in 2020. I knew that police could try to dodge, obstruct, and reject the public's right to that information, but I was still unprepared for the delays and disregard for transparency we've encountered from some police departments since the beginning. I sent out the first batch of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests in the days following the repeal of section 50-a of the state's Civil Rights Law, which made police misconduct documents subject to public view in June 2020. This was just weeks after George Floyd was killed during an encounter with police officers in Minneapolis. At the time, I was employed at MuckRock, a nonprofit that helps people navigate the public records process. As part of my work there, I had requested lots of materials from all kinds of government agencies and helped others do the same, so I knew a few things about how police departments circumvent transparency. Still, I was not familiar with the struggle that so many families and fair law advocates faced to get these records. Immediately after section 50-a's repeal, colleagues in the government transparency arena and I had conversations about the risk of some police departments deleting their records — I felt an urgent need to get out ahead of that possibility. June 12, 2020, the day of the repeal, was a Friday, and I spent the following weekend — one that was already filled with personal obligations — crafting requests, contacting lawyers, and collecting contact information for hundreds of police departments. If we didn't get the requests out as soon as possible, I worried, some of these records may never be seen again. Geneva Police's discipline rate: This NY city has an undue rate of police discipline. What's being done? I feared that despite the legislature's gesture toward transparency, some 'bad apple' police officers would continue to patrol without accountability, further degrading public trust and undermining the important work of their public safety colleagues. I loathed the very real prospect that the long fought fight by so many families for justice would see its fruits destroyed. Five years on, some of that concern still persists. After my requests for records went out, police departments began sending us letters with excuses of all kinds. That would become a constant drumbeat over the next year or so. Meanwhile, I started working with a consortium of New York media outlets, including the USA TODAY Network, to create a public database of the records departments were handing over — a collection that now includes thousands of documents. Dig into our database at . Some departments never acknowledged we'd issued them a legally-binding request for misconduct information — some still haven't. Other agencies claimed they had too many records to reasonably be able to provide them. Illegal police searches: Exposing the past: How illegal police searches fuel racial discrimination, excessive force Still others argued that the repeal didn't apply to issues of misconduct that happened before the law passed or that they weren't required to provide details of incidents in which an internal investigation found the officer to be free of culpability, flouting very clear portions of the law (New York's highest court has since clarified that departments cannot categorically withhold retroactive or so-called 'unsubstantiated' misconduct records from requesting media or residents.) Almost immediately, one New York senator published a letter bemoaning the receipt of my request, presumably devastated that, now that the law made such records public, the public would actually use its right to access. It's taken five years, but many of the cases obstructing access to these materials have worked their way through the courts. Fortunately, most have landed on the side of transparency. Officers take demeaning photo: Exposing the past: NY officers took 'demeaning' prisoner photo 20 years ago. Was discipline enough? I now work directly with the USA TODAY Network to continue adding records to the database and report on the stories found there. Last year, we reported about an alarming trend of police officers crashing their duty vehicles on New York streets, sometimes injuring or killing civilians. This year, we partnered with students at Syracuse University's Newhouse School to look at an array of misconduct incidents found in the data, including guns left unattended, illegal police searches and a rash of unprofessionalism and failure on the job in one Finger Lakes city. The USA TODAY Network hasn't let police departments forget their burden to provide these records under state law. We're in ongoing court battles with police departments that have refused to provide records. No one thinks that the often long hours and dangerous circumstances of policing constitute an easy job. It's precisely because of the importance and power that police have in our society that we, the journalists — stewards of the First Amendment and shepherds of an informed democracy — are compelled to keep up this crucial fight. We're committed to continuing to listen to those who have suffered under police abuse and to help protect the integrity of our laws and the people who are tasked to uphold them. Have you had trouble obtaining police misconduct records in New York? Tell us about your experience using the form below. A reporter may reach out to you as part of our continuing coverage. Beryl Lipton is police data coordinator for USA TODAY Network-New York. This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Police misconduct: Inside our fight to publish NY disciplinary records
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
What we found so far in decades of NY police misconduct documents
When New York police officers took demeaning photos of an incarcerated person, crashed a police cruiser or left a gun on the floor of a school bathroom, internal reports detailing the infractions were written and filed away at their departments. The public never saw the documents — and likely never knew these things ever happened. Until now. In 2020, a section of New York's Civil Rights Law that shielded police misconduct records from view —section 50-a — was repealed, allowing journalists and the public to access decades of records about the conduct of police officers working at departments across the state. For five years, the USA TODAY Network has been fighting to obtain those records from every New York state police department. So far, about a quarter of the state's more than 500 departments have responded with records, and we've added them to a searchable database, where you can look up an officer, a department, a location or a type of misconduct. We're still pursuing records to make this database more comprehensive. In 2025, the USA TODAY Network partnered with Syracuse University students at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and Central Current, a Syracuse nonprofit newsroom, on a series that investigates misconduct incidents and analyses data found in these records, some of which date back to the 1970s. You can find those stories below. If you have a question about finding police misconduct records for your city or town in New York, fill out our online form. This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: What we found so far in decades of NY police misconduct documents
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jewish student settles religious discrimination suit against Columbia
FIRST ON FOX: A Jewish student who alleged she was forced out of her graduate program in part because of her Shabbos observance has settled her religious discrimination lawsuit against Columbia University. The terms of the settlement in the lawsuit filed by The Lawfare Project and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP were confidential, but Lawfare Project executive Ziporah Reich said it included financial compensation and other relief. "These outcomes reflect the power of legal action to bring about meaningful change, we are proud to stand behind a courageous student who chose to stand up for her rights," Lawfare Project Director Brooke Goldstein told Fox News Digital in a statement. A Columbia spokesperson confirmed the settlement, saying, "We have reached a mutually agreeable confidential settlement with Forrest that did not include any admission of liability." Trump Admin Alleges Columbia Violated Civil Rights Law With 'Deliberate Indifference' To Campus Protests Mackenzie Forrest, an Orthodox Jewish student from Florida, claimed she was forced out of the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) program at the Columbia School of Social Work (CSSW), after she requested that she be allowed to attend classes remotely out of concern for her safety amid widespread antisemitic campus unrest following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. Read On The Fox News App Forrest alleged that she attended the Columbia School of Social Work specifically because of her interest in the DBT program. However, when she informed the program's director, Andre Ivanoff, Ph.D., that she would not be able to engage in classroom activities that fall on the Jewish Sabbath shortly after she was accepted in Spring 2023, Ivanoff allegedly replied that that would be a "problem," court documents say. Columbia University Punishes Students Who Took Over Building During Anti-israel Protests The Jewish graduate student received further pushback regarding her religious practices when she informed Ivanoff that she would be unable to attend a weekend-long workshop on suicide risk assessment because it fell on Shabbos, also known as the Sabbath. Despite Forrest saying that she could attend the parts of the workshop that did not occur between Friday night to Saturday night, Ivanoff allegedly told her she would need a "dispensation" from her rabbi to attend the workshop. Eventually, Ivanoff decided he would assign her substitute coursework in lieu of the workshop when Forrest informed him he could not attend. Following the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023, Columbia's campus exploded into a hotbed of antisemitism. In light of what the plaintiff claimed was widespread verbal abuse and a physical assault of a pro-Israel student who was allegedly beaten with what appeared to be a broom, Forrest requested that she be allowed to attend class remotely out of fear for her safety. Not only was the grad student's request denied, but soon after she claimed she faced retaliation from the university. Despite being a straight-A student, Forrest was told she was at risk of failing the field-based internship portion of her curriculum, according to the claim. The Jewish student alleged that she had never previously been told she was under-performing by her academic advisor, whom she met with article source: Jewish student settles religious discrimination suit against Columbia
New York Post
10-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Hunter Biden drops ‘revenge porn' lawsuit against Fox News for second time over nude laptop photos
Hunter Biden once again dropped a lawsuit against Fox News that accused the network of using 'revenge porn' linked to his infamous laptop in its portrayal of the former president's son in a 2022 streaming series. The lawsuit, filed last October, accused Fox of violating New York's Civil Rights Law by broadcasting sexually explicit content of Biden in a six-part miniseries titled 'The Trial of Hunter Biden' — a fictional account of a courtroom proceeding that never took place. The series, aired on the Fox Nation platform, included material sourced from the contents of Biden's laptop — which became the subject of a series of investigative reports published by The Post ahead of the 2020 presidential election.. Advertisement 3 Hunter Biden has once again withdrawn a lawsuit against Fox News. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images 'We are pleased to move on now that Hunter Biden has finally voluntarily withdrawn this meritless case, which proved to be nothing more than a politically motivated stunt,' a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement to The Post. Fox News is owned by Fox Corp — sister company to The Post's corporate parent News Corp. This was the second time Biden has initiated legal proceedings against the network and then backed off. He first threatened to sue in April 2024, leading Fox Nation to quietly remove the series from its library. Advertisement A lawsuit followed in July, only to be withdrawn weeks later. The October case, which was officially dismissed on Friday, cannot be refiled. Although Biden's legal team has offered no public explanation for abandoning the suit, a recent loss in court — where they failed to move the case from federal to state jurisdiction — may have played a role in the decision. The Post has sought comment from Hunter Biden. Advertisement 3 The lawsuit, filed last October, accused Fox of violating New York's Civil Rights Law by broadcasting sexually explicit content of Biden in a six-part miniseries. AFP via Getty Images In his initial filing, Biden alleged that Fox News had crossed a legal line by airing private, sexually explicit images of him, claiming the series amounted to a form of revenge porn and was 'entirely fictionalized.' The complaint accused the network of exploiting Biden's image 'through a form of treatment distinct from the dissemination of news or information.' Advertisement Fox, for its part, defended the program as protected under the First Amendment. 'This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit,' the network said last year. 'The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024. The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution.' Fox added that Hunter Biden 'is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon.' 'Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden's own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.' Hunter Biden has faced a series of legal troubles, including tax and gun charges. He was convicted last year on three felony counts related to lying about his drug use when purchasing a firearm. 3 Hunter Biden is seen right with wife Melissa Cohen Biden in June 2024. Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post 'The Trial of Hunter Biden' series drew from the contents of a laptop Hunter allegedly left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019. Advertisement The Post's reporting about the laptop was met with widespread censorship across major tech platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, which limited the story's reach under the justification that it could be based on 'hacked materials' — a claim later proven false. The laptop contained tens of thousands of emails, personal messages, financial records and videos, some of which showed Biden engaging in illicit drug use and explicit activity. These materials became a flashpoint in the political debate around media bias, censorship and the Biden family's business dealings.
