Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Nuisance Abatement Law Seemingly Gives NYPD License to Evict Criminal and Non-Criminal Residents

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*The New York Police Department is making shady use of a little-known law that allows it to evict residents residing in neighborhoods mostly occupied by minorities.

Although the nuisance abatement law was created in the 1970s to combat the sex industry in Times Square, ProPublica notes the city’s historic lows in its crime rate as it has vastly expanded while regularly targeting apartments and mom-and-pop bodegas. At the heart of the little-known law is the fact that it gives the city of New York the power to shut down places it believes are being used for illegal purposes.

According to ProPublica, residences account for nearly half of the cases the NYPD files, which amount to upward of 1,000.

ProPublica reports the process for three-quarters of the cases stems from secret court orders that lock residents out of their homes until the case is resolved. Despite a judge’s signoff being needed by police, the situation proves to be an uphill battle for residents, who aren’t notified about the eviction. As a result, they aren’t able to tell their side of the story until days after they’ve already been locked out.

With it being regarded as civil actions, things are made even worse as residents have no right to an attorney and can be permanently barred from their homes without being convicted or charged with a crime.

In partnership with ProPublica, the New York Daily News reviewed 516 residential nuisance abatement actions filed in the Supreme Courts from Jan. 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014. In addition, the outcomes of the underlying criminal cases against hundreds of people who were banned from homes as a result of these actions were also reviewed.

From the findings, ProPublica and the Daily News discovered that 173 of the people who gave up their leases or were banned from homes were not convicted of a crime, including 44 people who appear to have faced no criminal prosecution whatsoever.

“Overall, tenants and homeowners lost or had already left homes in three-quarters of the 337 cases for which the Daily News and ProPublica were able to determine the outcome. The other cases were either withdrawn without explanation, were missing settlements, or are still active,” ProPublica mentioned.

“In at least 74 cases, residents agreed to warrantless searches of their homes, sometimes in perpetuity, as one of the conditions of being allowed back in. Others agreed to automatically forfeit their leases if they were merely accused of wrongdoing in the future.”

The site goes on to point out that its analysis found that minorities “almost exclusively” took on the majority of nuisance abatement actions as nine of 19 homes subjected to the action over 18 months were in minority communities. Equally surprising was the fact that only five of the people identified by race of the 215 out of 297 people who were barred from their homes in nuisance abatement situations are white.

Commenting on the nuisance abatement issue, Runa Rajagopal who leads a division that represents people in the civil courts, labeled the practice a “collective punishment” on the entire family of those accused of a crime, “used by the NYPD to exert power and control largely over communities of color.”

Although the NYPD didn’t answer questions regarding specific cases, officials emphasized that the nuisance abatement situations are civil cases that are not only handled separately from criminal cases but also have lower standards of proof.

“The law does not require criminal conviction, does not require [a] particular disposition of a criminal case, does not even require an arrest of anyone,” said, the NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Lawrence Byrne told the Daily News last year during an interview.

For more on the nuisance abatement law, click here.

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