When is the NYPD going to learn the law?
The Police Department must stop giving cyclists red light tickets and criminal summonses for legally moving through intersections on a pedestrian "Walk" sign and before the traffic light changes to green for cars, according to a new class action lawsuit.
The legal challenge in the Southern District of New York launched on Wednesday asks a federal judge to issue an injunction against the nation's largest police force and make the city pay damages to any cyclists wrongfully ticketed, detained or arrested for going with the leading pedestrian interval, or LPI, a law that has been on the books since 2019.
The NYPD has continued to give out traffic tickets — and more recently amping them up to criminal court summonses, as Streetsblog has documented.
The new case in New York's Southern District aims to achieve what previous lower level lawsuits have not: Force NYPD brass and rank-and-file to follow the law by giving out clear guidance and training, while tracking future red light tickets, according to attorneys behind the suit. The city should also compensate people who have gotten the phony tickets and criminal court summonses, the suit argues.
"This action seeks to ensure the NYPD finally follows the law as it has been written for years, and stops unlawfully detaining and prosecuting cyclists when they’ve done nothing wrong,” said Mariann Wang of the firm Wang Hecker LLP, who filed the action.
The class action's first plaintiff, Oliver Casey Esparza, got a ticket while commuting to work, when a cop stopped him for going through the intersection at Third Avenue and E. 42nd Street in Midtown on Oct. 1, on which Streetsblog previously reported.
Esparza rode with an advance walk light before Officer Kenney Vega pulled him over, telling he illegally rode through a red light. When the cyclist explained it was legal to ride with the walk sign, the less than Finest allegedly said he was "99 percent sure" Esparza was wrong about that, before giving him a $190 ticket. The cyclist took the case to court and a judge, who was 100 percent sure, tossed it last month.
Rather than make cyclists go to trial each time the NYPD disregards the six-year-old law, the Manhattanite and his attorneys filed the class action lawsuit to achieve a verdict with more teeth to prevent cops from continuing the practice — especially now that the Finest are issuing summonses forcing people come to criminal court or face an arrest warrant, including cyclists going with the walk.
"It’s even more of a reason why people should join this class action lawsuit," Esparza said. "They’re enforcing laws without really knowing what the law is."
The policy will especially harm immigrant workers, he added, many of who rely on e-bikes for delivery work.
"Someone could be ticketed for running a red light and be deported," said Esparza. "Which is insane."
Barely two weeks into the NYPD's new strategy of giving cyclists and e-bike riders criminal summonses, also known as pink summonses, for low-level offenses, cops have already given out at least one pink summons to a cyclist who told Streetsblog she had been riding with the walk sign.
The suit names the city, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and her three predecessors under Mayor Adams, and accuses officials of knowingly violating New Yorkers' constitutional rights.
"This policy and practice is so consistent and widespread that it constitutes a custom or usage of which policymakers, including the individual Commissioner Defendants, must have been aware," reads the complaint [PDF].
The court filing from May 7 lists a dozen other cases, extensively citing Streetsblog's reporting on the issue and the more recent coverage of Commissioner Tisch's escalation to criminal summonses. There are likely “hundreds of thousands more such incidents,” many of which have been dismissed, but the cases will only roll in in greater number under the police's latest crackdown.
"Along with the NYPD's new policy of needlessly issuing criminal summons rather than tickets to cyclists, its blatantly unlawful practice of punishing cyclists who go with the walk makes the city less safe, and must stop," Daniel Mullkoff, another attorney at Wang Hecker told Streetsblog in a statement.
The crackdown has drawn condemnation from politicians at the city and state level, and one Brooklyn Council Member, Shahana Hanif, told Streetsblog on Friday that she is "exploring" ways for the City Council to "restore the previous protocol of issuing civil summonses."
Police brass have failed to properly train its officers, which “amounts to deliberate indifference," the legal filing argues, and that has resulted in law enforcement conduct that is "knowing, purposeful, malicious, and outrageous."
The wrongful ticketing infringes on the cyclists' Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, which enshrine protections against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government and equal protection before the law, respectively, along with the New York State Constitution's Article I, Section 12, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to deliver an injunction against the NYPD, while requiring the agency to issue clear communications and training to its rank-and-file to stop giving out these tickets, and demands damages for cyclists wrongfully ticketed for it. The city should also establish a tracking system for arrests, tickets and summonses to cyclists for red light violations, which notes whether there was a leading pedestrian signal.
The department issued an "operations order" to all of its members in March 2020 about the LPI law and all uniformed cops get a vehicle and traffic law reference guide at the academy, its press office previously told Streetsblog in unnamed statements. Supervisors provide retraining when "necessary," the reps said.
The suit aims to cover anyone "detained, arrested, ticketed, and/or prosecuted for cycling through an intersection in New York City during a Leading Pedestrian Interval."
Mulkoff told Streetsblog that other people affected by the ticketing policy have already reached out to their office.
The NYPD declined to comment on pending litigation.
Anyone who would like to join the class action lawsuit can contact Wang Hecker at mwang@wanghecker.com or (212) 620–2603.
