In response to news that NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne was caught by The New York Times spreading misinformation, New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman issued the following statement:

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging the refusal of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to disclose public records concerning a program that allows NYPD officers to regularly patrol privately owned apartment buildings. Landlords can enroll their buildings in the District Attorney’s Trespass Affidavit Program, which permits police officers to patrol the premises. The NYCLU has received numerous reports that police officers make unconstitutional, suspicionless stops – and even trespassing arrests – of TAP building residents and their invited guests.

A U.S. District Court judge has denied New York City’s motion to dismiss a New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s unlawful practice of detaining, questioning and searching innocent New Yorkers – particularly blacks, Latinos and other non-whites – who are passengers in livery cabs.

In a significant decision that moved toward resolving a longstanding challenge to New York City’s largest affordable housing plan and which may have implications for all future affordable housing developed in the city, a State Supreme Court judge today granted a preliminary injunction barring New York City from moving forward with developing affordable housing on the border of two Brooklyn neighborhoods, Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant, that would create dramatic racial disparities and increase existing segregation in surrounding neighborhoods.

The New York Civil Liberties Union today requested permission to file a brief with the New York State Court of Appeals that argues that state law requires judges to authorize at least two forms of bail for criminal defendants.

The Bloomberg administration’s over-reliance on suspensions and police in public schools harms the ability of the most vulnerable New York City children to succeed academically, and disproportionately affects black students and students with special needs, the New York Civil Liberties Union argued today in testimony before the New York City Council.

The NYPD is on pace to stop and interrogate a record number of totally innocent New Yorkers in 2011, according to a New York Civil Liberties Union analysis of new police data. During the first three quarters of the year, police stopped totally innocent New Yorkers 451,000 times – the overwhelming majority of whom were black or Latino. NYPD officers have stopped more than 4 million New Yorkers since the Department began collecting data on the program in 2004.

Police arrested or ticketed approximately four students each day in New York City public schools from July through September, according to a New York Civil Liberties Union analysis of new NYPD data. About 94 percent of students arrested were black or Latino; nearly 83 percent were male.

The NYPD’s disciplining of three officers involved in the wrongful arrests of Council Member Jumaane D. Williams and Public Advocate aide Kirsten John Foy is a welcome step, but it does not address systemic injustices that lead to hundreds of thousands of black and Latino New Yorkers being unlawfully stopped, interrogated and pushed into the criminal justice system by police each year, Council Member Williams, Mr. Foy and the New York Civil Liberties Union announced today at a press conference.

The New York Civil Liberties Union today expressed concern about a new operations order issued by NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly that appears to establish a formal quota system for arrests, summonses and street stops. The order, issued on Oct. 17 and made public today by The Village Voice, requires setting “performance goals” for police officers that will measure “enforcement activity,” including making arrests, issuing summonses and conducting stop and frisk encounters.