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New York State Lawyer Normal Letitia James sued the New York Police Division on Thursday over what she mentioned had been widespread abuses in how officers dealt with protests that erupted final summer season after the killing of George Floyd, reports the New York Times. James desires a court-appointed monitor to supervise policing ways at future protests and a court docket order that the insurance policies and practices the division used in the course of the protests final Could and June had been illegal. James mentioned the swimsuit marked the primary time that the state legal professional common has sued a police division.
Greater than 2,000 demonstrators had been arrested, most of them whereas protesting peacefully. James’s workplace discovered that police beat protesters with batons, rammed them with bicycles, used a harmful containment technique referred to as kettling, and arrested authorized observers and medics with out correct justification. Mayor Invoice de Blasio mentioned the lawsuit would gradual his administration’s efforts to implement main modifications. “A court docket course of and the added forms of a federal monitor is not going to velocity up this work,” he mentioned. John Miller, deputy police commissioner for counterterrorism and intelligence, mentioned the lawsuit doesn’t present a “sample and follow” required by federal regulation for a monitor to be appointed. Attorneys common hardly ever use their powers towards whole police departments. De Blasio and James are each Democrats, although the town’s prime two police officers, Commissioner Dermot Shea and Chief of Division Terence Monahan, have registered as Republicans.
