On behalf of a journalist for The City Report, Inc., publisher of The City Reporter, the Clinic filed this Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit against the New York City Police Department. The client filed three FOIL requests for records with NYPD that the Department unlawfully denied, and this lawsuit seeks to obtain those records to help the public understand NYPD’s actions.

The facts underlying these FOIL requests are simple. Samuel Williams died in May 2023 after a collision with an unmarked NYPD vehicle. Body-worn camera footage released by the New York Attorney General shows that an NYPD officer crossed into oncoming traffic with his unmarked vehicle and hit Williams head-on. With the critically injured Williams splayed on the hood of the NYPD vehicle, a broken leg bone reportedly jutting through his pants, officers put him in handcuffs before attempting to help him. He died at a hospital the next day.

Gonen, a journalist who covers the NYPD, filed FOIL requests seeking body-worn camera footage, other recordings obtained by NYPD, and the closing memo issued by the Department’s Force Investigation Division. These records would reveal the actions of NYPD officers and the extent to which the Department investigated its officers’ actions.

NYPD denied the requests. It claimed that all responsive records were “sealed under court order, pursuant to Criminal Procedure Law Section 160.50.” That law requires certain records to be sealed after a prosecution is terminated in favor of the defendant in specified circumstances. It is intended to make sure that acquitted defendants don’t suffer stigma as a result of being charged with a crime that they were not convicted of.

Williams had not been charged with any crime before he died, nor do his circumstances meet any of the other preconditions necessary for Section 160.50 to apply. Additionally, the records that the journalist seeks — some of which have already been released by the Attorney General — would not be shielded by Section 160.50 even if the statute did apply in Williams’ circumstance.

This lawsuit seeks to obtain the public records that the journalist requested, which cannot properly be shielded from the public. The law does not allow NYPD to hide the actions of its own officers that caused the death of a man who was never charged with a crime.

On June 4, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that the NYPD must release body-cam and dash-cam footage and other records. In his ruling, Judge Frank agreed that section 160.50 does not apply. He wrote that the body-worn camera and dashcam footage are not “official records” within the meaning of the statute, as they serve a purpose not inherently tied to any arrest or prosecution. Even if they were official records, subsection (3)(i) requires the prosecutor to elect not to prosecute. “[T]there was no election that occurred in this instance, as it is undisputed that Mr. Williams was not prosecuted because he was deceased,” Judge Frank wrote. Similarly, the sealing statute could not be applied to the closing memo issued by the FID.

The court denied the NYPD’s additional claimed exemptions under Public Officers Law sections 87(2)(b) and 87(2)(e)(iv) as the arguments were first raised during litigation, not at the administrative level as required.

On June 8, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Office of Special Investigation released its report on the death of Samuel Williams. OSI closed the matter, stating that the officers involved would not be prosecuted.

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