Four New York City Councilmembers and a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters announced the filing of a big federal civil rights lawsuit (read it in full below) against the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg. Councilmembers Letitia James, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams appeared at a press conference at City Hall this morning to announce their lawsuit, which accuses the NYPD of routinely violating First Amendment rights and using excessive force to suppress dissent. Their lawsuit calls for the creation of an "outside monitor" to police the police.
The NYPD's "unlawful conduct has been undertaken with the intention of obstructing, chilling, deterring and retaliating against (the) plaintiffs for engaging in constitutionally protected protest activity," the lawsuit alleges. Williams and Rodriguez have both tangled with the NYPD in the past year. Williams was arrested during a bizarre incident following the West-Indian Day Parade last September (three officers were subsequently disciplined) and again during a direct action protest at the Brooklyn Bridge in November. (Mark-Viverito was also arrested at that protest.)
Councilmember Rodriguez was arrested and allegedly roughed up by police on the night of the Zuccotti Park eviction. Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that city officials successfully "intervened" to get Time magazine to remove from its website a dramatic photo of Rodriguez being arrested.
This photo, submitted into evidence as part of the lawsuit, shows Councilmember Rodriguez's arrest on the night of the NYPD's Zuccotti Park raid. A TIME magazine source allegedly told Rodriguez's lawyer that a city official successfully pressured the magazine to remove the photo.
Attorney Leo Glickman, who represented Councilmember Rodriguez after the arrest, tells us, "That night [of Rodriguez's arrest] we saw on Time magazine's website photographs of the story, with Ydanis being held down by police in riot gear. We sent the link around, and then noticed that within hours it was changed. A source at Time Magazine told us that someone called from the city asking them to change it because it was inflammatory. It was replaced by a very innocuous photo of Ydanis speaking to a police officer about something completely unrelated. This lawsuit will set out to prove that the city pressured Time magazine to remove the photo."
"We need accountability, we need relief, and we’re not going to just sit idly by,” Williams tells the Wall Street Journal. The lawsuit is being spearheaded by attorney Yetta Kurland, who has run for City Council (unsuccessfully) against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. She tells us, "It's upsetting when we see general members of the public being arrested for protesting, and excessive force being used. But I think there's something especially chilling when you see members of the press and elected officials being targeted and arrested and, in the case of Councilmember Rodriguez, being bloodied during his arrest."
The lawsuit further alleges that the NYPD has been making an unconstitutional distinction between "official" reporters, who are credentialed by the NYPD, and citizen journalists, who say they've been repeatedly targeted for arrest while documenting Occupy Wall Street protests. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Justin Wedes, was arrested while videotaping a protest at the World Financial Center last year. He was held for 40 hours before being released. "Reporters have a First Amendment right to gather and record governmental processes, including police actions, regardless of whether they are 'official' or 'unofficial.' "
Protesters outside Zuccotti Park a day after the NYPD evicted Occupy Wall Street. (Jake Dobkin/Gothamist)
The suit also addresses the City’s relationship with JP Morgan Chase, who donated $4.6 million to the NYPD during the time the Occupy protests began. The lawsuit sees a connection between the donation and the NYPD's closure of One Chase Manhattan Plaza, allegedly to "deter individuals from engaging in peaceable assembly and free speech." One Chase Manhattan Plaza, like Zuccotti Park, is a Privately Owned Public Space that was required to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It remains fenced off. "The NYPD should not be something communities fear when they're exercising their First amendment rights," adds Kurland. "And we think a Federal monitor is necessary at this point."
Justin Sullivan, another protester named as plaintiff in the lawsuit, tells us, "Covering OWS as a citizen journalist has opened my eyes to a shocking level of systematic and discriminatory police enforcement. Seeing how officers treat protesters and the journalists covering them with a unique and lower respect for our rights has shined a bright light on law enforcement's true motives: to silence our speech. The arrest of me and other citizen journalists covering this behavior has emboldened rather than chilled our determination to document this suppression."
Neither Time Magazine, a spokesperson for Mayor Bloomberg, nor the city Law Department have thus far responded to request for comment. [UPDATE 2:57 p.m.: Muriel Goode-Trufant, Chief of Special Federal Litigation Division at the NYC Law Department, says the city has not yet been formally served the lawsuit, and thus she has not had an opportunity to review it.]
