Surveillance Technology Oversight Project & Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

-against-

New York Police Department (Nypd)

Status: Filed

Key issue(s): Police Practices, Open Records, Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)

Court: New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan

Docket:

Counsel: S.T.O.P. / Quinn, Emanuel, & Sullivan LLP

S.T.O.P. and our co-counsel are pursuing litigation against the NYPD for systematically hiding public records from the public. The lawsuit claims the NYPD engages in a pattern and practice of unlawfully refusing to respond to Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, citing NYPD delays in 42,000 requests over the past four years.

The lawsuit alleges that in 2019, the NYPD claimed more than 34 years’ worth of FOIL extensions, but by 2021 the number grew to more than 50 years’ worth of delays. Unlike routine FOIL lawsuits about individual document requests, this lawsuit challenges the NYPD’s noncompliance with FOIL more broadly, seeking protections to ensure that the NYPD properly responds to all future FOIL requests.