© Jessica Lehrman / GothamistA protester is arrested on September 16, 2012
A new lawsuit filed in federal court last week aims to challenge a reality evident to anyone who has attended
a large political gathering in Lower Manhattan over the past decade:
lawful behavior is no safeguard against being arrested.The lawsuit centers on more than 200 arrests made around the
first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street in September 2012, when the NYPD "should have known that members of its police force would encounter individuals engaged in expressive speech activity."
Instead, the NYPD continued to arrest and harass protesters for seemingly no reason other than that they were protesting.The lawsuit asserts that this is part of a "pattern, policy, and practice of the NYPD misapplying the disorderly conduct statute to peaceful protesters in New York City."
"The City of New York has continually failed to appropriately police the many non-violent and lawful expressions of speech, resulting in the continual breach of individual rights, the waste of judicial and civic resources, and the need for appropriate training policies, methodologies, and systems to address individuals conducting peaceful and legal expressive speech as protected under the First Amendment," the suit states.
Comment: See: Retired tennis pro James Blake tackled and handcuffed by abusive NYPD cop