NYCLU v. Yonkers PD

The New York Civil Liberties Union, with pro bono counsel from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, filed a lawsuit against the City of Yonkers and the Yonkers Police Department for unlawfully denying the NYCLU’s request for records related to police misconduct. The NYCLU submitted a FOIL request on September 15, 2020, 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 misconduct by law enforcement. The Yonkers Police Department has wrongfully withheld unsubstantiated disciplinary records, redacted without proper explanation the names of police officers in its production of records, and refused to search for documents dated before 2011.