NYPD Disciplinary Records Belong To The Public, Court Rules

NEW YORK CITY — A Hail Mary effort to keep NYPD police disciplinary files secret fell short in federal court.

The Second Court of Appeals on Tuesday struck down a lawsuit by police unions that sought to prevent the records' release after the repeal of 50-A — a transparency law long used by NYPD officials to deny requests.

Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly ran a victory lap following the federal ruling.

"Good riddance to 50-A," he said in a statement. "We look forward to releasing this data and will seek clarity from the court regarding when these records can be released.”

Lawmakers repealed 50-A over the summer amid protests over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd.

The repeal momentarily opened up disciplinary files before police unions filed a lawsuit.

The lawsuit marshaled several arguments against releasing police disciplinary records but those failed to sway a federal judge. They appealed, bringing the lawsuit to the Second Court.

And one-by-one, the appellate court's 18-page ruling dismantled the unions' arguments.

In one pointed passage, the ruling rebutted the argument that releasing discipline records put police officers in danger. Simply put: other police departments across the country routinely release such files without any violent backlash.

"We fully and unequivocally respect the dangers and risks police officers face every day," the ruling states. "But we cannot say that the District Court abused its discretion when it determined that the Unions have not sufficiently demonstrated that those dangers and risks are likely to increase because of the City’s planned disclosures. In arriving at that conclusion, we note again that many other States make similar misconduct records at least partially available to the public without any evidence of a resulting increase of danger to police officers."