Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Police Brutality

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police brutality signPolice misconduct lawsuits cost New York City $ 228.5 million last fiscal year according to the recently released Mayor’s Management Report. This amount accounts for a third of all city lawsuits.  As a comparison this number was $86.5 million in 2005.  In a recent article, the Gothamist explains that this staggering number is not related to recent cases but to older ones.  Some cases can take up to 10 years to reach a conclusion. For example cases of police brutality and mistreatment during the 2004 Republican National Convention cost the city half a billion dollars over the years and took 10 years to be resolved. Often one big profile case can also represent a big chunk of the yearly amount. During the last fiscal year, for example, the city paid $40 million for 5 men wrongly convicted for the murder of a taxi driver in the Bronx.

In an attempt to reduce this ballooning amount, the city comptroller Scott Stringer has launched ClaimStat, a new program to record and analyze lawsuits against the police. With ClaimStat, Stringer is trying to figure out what is the most advantageous for the city: settle or fight a lawsuit. The NYPD also created a legal unit to assist the NYC Corporation Counsel in investigating cases.

Recently complaints for police brutality in New York City have been globally declining. The Mayor’s Management Report indicates that during the last fiscal year there were 4,711 complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board and 2,933 lawsuits against the NYPD compared to respectively 5,700 and 3,600 in 2012.  However despite a decline in CCRB complaints the number of substantiated complaints increased significantly. From 315  during the 2014 fiscal year it jumped to 531 last year.

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altonsterlingPhilando CastilleAlton Sterling and Philando Castille are the two most recent victims of an epidemic of police brutality and discrimination against African Americans all over this country. These two men died this week in two separate incidents during which both of them were literally executed by the police.

On Tuesday a gruesome video circulated among social media and news channels showing two policemen from Baton Rouge, Louisiana murdering Alton Sterling while they were  holding him down on the ground. The video shows that he was not resisting.

A day later, Philando Castille was in his car with his wife and daughter in Falcon Heighth, Minesota, when he got stopped by the police for a a defective tail light. As he was reaching to his back pocket get his I.D in his wallet the cop  shot him for no reason. His wife streamed a video live on Facebook as he was dying in front of her.

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New York Personal Injury lawyer Anthony GairOur partner Anthony Gair who represented the mother of Amadou Diallo, who was shot at 41 times by NYPD officers was quoted in an article from the New York Times related to the $ 5.9 million settlement received by the family of Eric Garner from the City of New York.

The case of Mr. Garner’s death differed from other killings by the police because of video capturing his final pleas for breath and because of the number of children who could claim damages. Five are named in the release forms. “I was dealing with someone who left no dependents and there was no conscious pain and suffering because he died instantly,” said Anthony H. Gair, the lawyer for the family of Amadou Diallo, killed in hail of police bullets in 1999. The city made no significant offer “until the very, very end,” he said, ultimately settling the case for $3 million. This amount is the largest amount that has ever been paid by the city of New York in a wrongful-death action for the death of a single individual with no dependents.

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Police brutality is at the origin of the death of Freddie Gray and the 6 police officers involved in the arrest of the 25 year old black man and recklessly drove him unbuckled in a police wagon until he suffered a severe and critical neck injury will face criminal charges. ” The most serious charges were brought against Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who was driving the van that carried Mr. Gray to a police station after his April 12 arrest. Along with involuntary manslaughter, Officer Goodson, 45, was charged with “second-degree depraved heart murder,” which means indifference to human life.” Read more in New York Times. This morning in a press conference, Baltimore State Attorney Marylin Mosby said that after her team investigated the death of Freedie Gray, they came to the conclusion that Freddie Gray’s death was a homicide and that they have probable cause to file criminal charges. See video below

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chokehold.jpgA troubling report examining 10 cases of police misconduct in New York during which cops used the prohibited chokehold move shows that in 4 of the cases police officers used chokeholds as a “first act” instead of verbal communication against citizens who had only confronted the cops verbally and not physically. The report was issued today by Philip Eure, the city’s first inspector general for the NYPD. The report is following the death of New York citizen Eric Garner who died this summer in Staten Island after a police officer put him in a choke hold. Last December the policeman who killed Garner was not indicted stirring public outrage and rallies against police brutality.

Read more in the New York Times and in the NY Daily News
Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia

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police%20brutality.jpgPolice brutality and racial profiling continue to happen in New York City because cops can get away with it. Since 1999 when Amadou Diallo died after being shot at 41 times and hit 19 by the police, 179 additional people have been killed by on duty New York Police Officers but only 3 of them have been indicted and 1 of them was convicted but he never went to jail according to an investigation conducted by the NY Daily News. 27% of the victims were unarmed, 86% were black or Hispanic.

Most of the time police officers get away with their crime because the prosecutors and the police need each other to do their job. Advocacy groups have been asking the creation of a special prosecutor to handle such cases.

Our firm represented the mother of Amadou Diallo, in the video below, New York Police Brutality Lawyer Anthony Gair discusses police misconduct, stop and frisk and racial profiling in an interview with Court TV.

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Cleveland%20Police.jpgA 12 year old boy who was killed by a Cleveland Police Officer is the last victim of a long history of police brutality in the city of Cleveland. A year and half ago the feds launched an investigation of the Cleveland Police Department after several high profile use of force incidents and numerous public demands for a federal investigation by civic leaders and local politicians. The Justice Department released their report Thursday afternoon. The report found that officers used on a regular basis unjustifiable force not only against criminals but also against innocent victims of crime. Among the allegations, the feds report that Cleveland officers in recent years punched a handcuffed 13 year old boy who was shoplifting. They also shot an unarmed kidnapping victim who was only wearing his underwear.

Read more in the Huffington Post.

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Two New York police officers have been charged for assault and police misconduct after they were caught on tape beating Kahreem Tribble, a 16 year old teenager with their fists and a gun (see video below). David Afanador and Tyrane Isaac were caught on a video chasing and catching the teenager on a Crown Heights street. After the boy surrendered, one of the cops is seen throwing a punch at the boy’s face before his colleague joined in, whipping his head with a drawn pistol.

Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson said the video was troubling and “if any police officer has crossed the line – we have to hold him accountable”.

Afanador was charged with felony assault and misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a weapon and official misconduct. He faces up to seven years in prison.

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New York personal injury lawyer Anthony Gair discusses the Amadou Diallo Criminal Prosecution.
Gair Gair Conason Steigman Mackauf Bloom & Rubinowitz represented the Estate in the wrongful death action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 of The Civil Rights Act. The Diallo case was settled for $3 Million. This amount is the largest amount ever paid by the City of New York in a wrongful-death action for the death of a single individual with no dependents.

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To prevail in a civil rights action under 42 USC §1983, plaintiff must establish that defendants deprived decedent of a right secured by the constitution or laws of the United States and that such deprivation was committed by person(s) acting under color of state law (see, Spell v. McDaniel, 591 F.Supp. 1090 [1984]). Officially promulgated ordinances, regulations and departmental directives give rise to municipal liability under section 1983 if such policies and decisions lead to a deprivation of constitutional rights (Id.). Municipalities are liable under section 1983 for de facto policies or practices which engender constitutional deprivation; informal actions, if they reflect general policy, custom, practice or pattern of official conduct which even tacitly encourage conduct depriving individuals of their constitutional rights, satisfies section 1983 standards (Id.).

Legal Standard For Discovery

Federal, and not State law, governs questions of discoverability, confidentiality and privilege in federal civil rights actions (see, King v. Conde, 121 F.R.D. 180 [EDNY 1988]; Fed. R. Civ. P. 26[b][1]). Under Rule 26 (b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, any information that is not privileged is discoverable if it is relevant to the action or reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.

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