An agreement was announced Tuesday between the New York Attorney General, the NYPD and civil liberties advocates to reform how protests are policed. See more HERE
The Significance of this agreement is that it could impact every police department in New York State. All future policing of First Amendment Activity, protests, or riots can be compared to the agreement reached between the NYPD, The NY Attorney General, and the ACLU.
This is unfair to policing for several reasons: NYPD and the protest events they face are unique, NYPD has resources and capabilities that no other police departments in America (maybe the World) have available to them, Home Rule allows for each police department to establish their own policy and procedures, having the protestor dictate the rules to police protests/riots seems counterintuitive, especially when the protestors/rioters have no rules to follow.
A copy of the agreement is available HERE
Payne et al. v de Blasio et al.
The New York Civil Liberties Union and The Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit against Mayor Bill de Blasio, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, Chief of Department Terence Monahan, the City of New York, and several individual police officers for their roles in the indiscriminate brutalizing of peaceful protestors during the protests following the police killing of George Floyd. The suit addresses the first month of protests between May 28 and June 28, where swarming officers used batons, pepper spray, and other aggressive techniques to retaliate against New Yorkers for showing their support of Black lives and demanding an end to police violence. Such uses of excessive force against these demonstrators violated their First and Fourth Amendment rights.
The suit claims the mayor and city instituted a de facto policy allowing individual officers to violently target protesters by repeatedly approving forceful deployments and refusing discipline or repercussions for blatant officer misconduct. See more HERE
Get a copy of the Complaint HERE
Future of Policing 