NYCLU v. Suffolk Police Department

The New York Civil Liberties Union, with pro bono counsel from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, filed a lawsuit against the Suffolk Police Department unlawfully denying the NYCLU’s requests for records related to police misconduct.

The NYCLU submitted a FOIL request seeking public records specifically authorized to be disclosed under state FOIL after the repeal of Civil Rights Law § 50-a, a statute that had been used for decades to bar the disclosure of police misconduct. The Suffolk Police Department has withheld all documents regarding complaints that did not result in discipline and over redacted others, and it denied the NYCLU’s administrative appeal filed in November 2021.