New York City Civil Rights lawyer

In the period extending from July 2010 and 2011, complaints against the NYPD of racial profiling, police brutality, and other forms of discrimination resulted in 2,240 civil rights law suits being filed against the City of New York and individual police officers. It is your civil right to be treated equally and to have personal liberty – having a New York City civil rights violation attorney in these situations where that is not respected is essential for a plethora of reasons.

If you believe that your civil rights have been violated by law enforcement, another government agency, or a private party based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin, you may have legal recourse. Your best course of action is to contact an experienced civil rights violation attorney without delay.

“Stop and Frisk” has Resulted in Discriminatory Treatment and False Arrests of People of Color

Many of the civil rights complaints arose from the NYPD’s controversial “stop and frisk” policy. Under the Fourth Amendment, police are allowed to stop a citizen only if they reason to believe that the person has committed a crime. In fact, officers have routinely stopped and frisked people of color without basis, only to invent a reason afterward. This has resulted in numerous false arrests and great harm to the victims, who have suffered in many ways—financially, psychologically, and socially. They have been humiliated, roughly handled, denied their dignity, and deprived of their freedom for a period of time, only to have the charges dropped in most cases. Some had their kids removed from the home.

 The Wall Street Journal reported that 87 percent of the 684,330 stops in 2011 were of blacks and Latinos, and of those, at the very least 200,000 were done without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. A federal court judge ruled the policy to be discriminatory and appointed an independent monitor to oversee the manner in which the policy was being implemented, resulting in new procedure, improved training, and a pilot program in which participating police officers must wear body cameras.

New York City Can Be Made to Pay for Discriminatory Practices

Since 2009, the City of New York has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements related to police misconduct. Some examples of police conduct that may be discriminatory include:

• Illegal arrests for loitering
• Wrongful death of suspects at the hands of police
• Police withholding medication from inmates
• Police brutality
• Sexual abuse by police of prison staff
• False arrest
• Excessive use of force
• Retaliatory arrest
• Malicious prosecution
• Cruel and unusual punishment in custody
• Racial profiling
• Targeting people with Middle Eastern features or women wearing a hijab (Islamic headscarf)

How to Get the Help You Need When Your Civil Rights Have Been Violated

You can get the aggressive legal advocacy you need by calling the law offices of attorney Jon Norinsberg, a New York City civil rights lawyer with more than 25 years of legal experience and a passion for justice and equality. The only way to put a stop to illegal discrimination by the NYPD or others is to hold the wrongdoers accountable for their actions, both criminally and civilly.

A criminal action can result in jail time and other punishments for those who violate the law in their official capacity. Putting them behind bars is important and a strong deterrent; but making victims whole again is also important. You may be able to recover monetary damages as compensation for losses to your finances, your reputation, your mental status, and your quality of life that have resulted from the mistreatment. In some especially egregious cases, a jury might award you punitive damage, designed to punish the perpetrator and deter the behavior in the future.

Call a New York City Civil Rights Attorney to Learn about Your Rights

Standing up to a powerful government with extensive resources is not for the faint of heart, so you will need a New York City police brutality attorney, like Jon Norinsberg, who has demonstrated again and again that he will not be intimidated in speaking truth to power. He specialized in civil rights cases and is deeply committed to equal justice under the law for everyone and is willing to fight tirelessly to achieve it.

Legal time limits exist for filing a lawsuit against any government entity, including the City of New York, so it is important not to delay in obtaining counsel to avoid missing a filing deadline, which could negatively affect your case. Call the Norinsberg Law Firm today to protect your rights and to do your part in putting an end to illegal and immoral discrimination in New York.