Lawsuit: NYPD routinely delays requests for public records

The NYPD is routinely delaying requests for public records, including body camera footage, incident reports and officers’ disciplinary records, making it harder for New Yorkers to fact-check their claims and hold them accountable, according to a new lawsuit.

The suit, filed this week in state court in Manhattan, argues the NYPD has a pattern of slow-walking requests for information that should be easily available, “obstructing New Yorkers’ legal right to see how our tax dollars are spent and how our laws are enforced.” It calls on the NYPD to speed up its process — or for a court monitor to take over if police can’t fix the problem on their own.

“This is about holding the NYPD accountable and really just protecting the rights of New Yorkers to know what our government is doing,” said Albert Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, which brought the case.

In an emailed statement, city Law Department spokesperson Nicholas Paolucci said the agency has not yet been served with legal papers, but said “the Law Department will review the lawsuit once served.” The NYPD issued a similar statement.

Journalists, attorneys and other members of the public request tens of thousands of records from the NYPD every year. But according to city data, it often takes months, or even years, for the NYPD to turn over those records — if they do at all.

State law requires government agencies to share their records with the public, barring a few exceptions. Law enforcement, for example, can deny a request if handing over a document or piece of footage could jeopardize an open investigation or identify a confidential source.

Agencies are supposed to either turn over materials or give specific reasons for a denial, based on the exceptions laid out in law. Either way, they’re supposed to give an answer in a timely fashion.

Cahn’s organization, which routinely submits records requests related to the NYPD’s use of surveillance, analyzed four years’ worth of data and found that turnaround times have climbed for a larger share of requests in recent years.

The analysis found that the NYPD asked for a 90-business-day extension for more than half the requests it received last year — 12,821 times out of 24,163 total requests. That’s a major jump from 2019, when the NYPD waited 90 days to respond to 38% of requests — 8,798 out of 23,441 total requests. The percentage of 90-day delays was highest in 2021, when the total number of requests was actually much lower than in 2019 or 2022.

“If the number of requests is about the same and the number of delays is skyrocketing, that just really shows a choice by the NYPD to delay and delay rather than actually giving New Yorkers the records that we’re entitled to as a matter of law,” Cahn said. “This isn’t optional. This isn’t something they’re supposed to do. This is the law.”

Derek Kravitz with the nonprofit MuckRock said the NYPD is “one of the worst agencies” in both the city and the state when it comes to timely responses for records requests.

MuckRock helps reporters and other members of the public track down government materials, in New York and across the country. Kravitz said many other law enforcement agencies he’s worked with have systems in place that allow them to turn over records more quickly — even departments that are much smaller than the NYPD.

“They are timely. They are thoughtful. They produce information that helps the public’s understanding of how the police and the public interact with each other,” he said. “This is contrary to that. The NYPD has a very dubious record.”

Kravitz said various factors can contribute to delays, including a distrust of the media, a lack of funding, and backlogs that ballooned during the pandemic. But the NYPD saw a major drop in requests during the height of COVID-19, according to city data cited in the lawsuit. The department’s multibillion-dollar budget also far surpasses those of other law enforcement agencies. Meanwhile, Kravitz said, legal disputes over delayed and denied requests can cost taxpayers.

While the NYPD does share some data in public reports and dashboards, Kravitz said it’s important for the public to have direct access to police records, to see what the department isn’t sharing voluntarily.

“These primary source records are important to actually hold the NYPD and other agencies accountable for what they’re saying publicly and to match the words with the record,” he said. “Without them, there’s a huge knowledge gap.”