Yesterday, we asked a court to order the NYPD to stop giving cops access to sealed arrest records. The NYPD illegally uses these records to track and surveil predominantly Black and brown people. If we win—and we expect to—it will be big. Here’s why in 3 tweets. 🧵
1/3 A NY law from 1976 prohibits police from accessing arrest records where the person arrested was not convicted, protecting the presumption of innocence & preventing racial disparities in policing: People shouldn’t be punished/ targeted by police for accusations that r tossed.
2/3 In disregard of the law, the NYPD gives cops access to over 6 million sealed records on over 3 million people through more than a dozen interconnected databases. And NYPD trainings about its sealed records policy grossly misstate the law. This violates the rights of millions.
3/3 If we win a court order stopping the NYPD from giving cops sealed arrest records, it will turn off a faucet that’s spewing private personal information—about mostly Black and brown ppl—from the NYPD’s surveillance/ tracking/ targeting systems into the hands of cops.
There are times, in representing civil rights plaintiffs, that we bring a long shot case. This is not one of them.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
