Judge orders NYPD to reveal racial data on all people shot at by cops from 1997 to 2006: A judge Monday ordered the NYPD to turn over the racial breakdown of all people shot at by police officers between 1997 and 2006.
The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the NYPD in 2008 for racial data about shooting victims.
The NYPD agreed to release the racial breakdown of those injured by police gunfire, but not data about those who were shot at but not hit.
In an opinion dated Dec. 15, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden ruled the NYPD had not met its burden under the state's Freedom of Information Law to withhold the data.
After the fatal police shooting of Sean Bell in 2006, the NYCLU filed a Freedom of Information request for the NYPD's annual statical reports on police shooting from 1996 to 2006, as well as the race of civilians cops fired at.
The department produced the reports, but not the racial data.
In October 2007, it filed a formal request for the NYPD's annual statistical reports on police shootings from 1996 through 2006 as well as the race of civilians shot at by police.
'The court's decision makes clear that the NYPD had no basis for withholding this data, which is necessary to conduct a complete study of the role race plays in police shootings,' said NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn, lead counsel in the case.
