Three years after the stop-and-frisk tactics employed by the New York Police Department were ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, Travis Simmons alleges two cops from Bushwick’s 83rd Precinct handcuffed, beaten, and arrested him without any evidence he had committed a crime in August 2016.
Simmons filed the $1 million lawsuit in Brooklyn Civil Court on August 26, 2019 and accused three NYPD officers of employing the Bloomberg-era stop-and-frisk practice. He filed a complaint which said the incident happened near Locust and Beaver streets at around 9 a.m. on August 28, 2016.
NYPD officer, Edward Fackler, is accused of shoving his hands into Simmons’ pockets and then proceeded to arrest Simmons without finding anything illegal. According to the complaint, Simmons was ordered to take off his belt and sneakers, while still in handcuffs, and when he was unable to complete the officers’ orders, his head was allegedly banged against a cell wall.
The suit alleges Simmons was then charged with marijuana possession, tampering with evidence, assaulting an officer, and resisting arrest, and was sent to the hospital while in handcuffs.
Bushwick’s 83rd Precinct, since 2007, has been associated with 19 lawsuits, 14 of which are federal lawsuits since 2015, according to city data. The 19 lawsuits have resulted in $1, 472, 501 in settlement payments.
Stop-and-frisk has been frequently cited by city officials as playing a critical part in the downturn of murders and major crimes during the Bloomberg administration (2001-2009).
The judge who overturned stop-and-frisk in 2013, Shira A. Scheindlin, said in a statement that the NYPD had resorted to a “policy of indirect racial profiling” and the officers’ would routinely stop “Blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white.”
Cover image courtesy of 83rd Precinct’s Facebook.
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