Today, CCR announced with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio that we have reached an agreement for the City to drop the appeal in our landmark stop-and-frisk class action, Floyd v. the City of New York.
In August 2013, a federal judge found that the New York Police Department (NYPD) had engaged in a widespread practice of unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stops and frisks. The court ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee a collaborative, joint remedial process.
The outgoing New York City mayor and police commissioner appealed our victory this fall and temporarily stopped the reform process from moving forward. The new Mayor’s action – and his decision to accept the findings in our Floyd case about the NYPD’s unconstitutional and racially discriminatory police practices – came as a result of enormous community pressure to reform the police department.
Now we can begin the long and important work of identifying and implementing real, lasting reforms to the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices, and holding the Department accountable to ensure these reforms happen.
The joint remedial process ordered by the court in Floyd will bring together affected communities, elected officials, the police, and plaintiffs and attorneys in the case. The process ensures that communities who have been directly affected by these practices shape the future of stop and frisk for New York. The people of New York made clear at a packed event on Monday with activists, elected officials and experts that they are urgently waiting for this reform process to move forward.
We will celebrate the official dropping of the appeal in the coming weeks. For now, we are rolling up our sleeves.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
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