Are Police Corrupt? NYPD Summonses For No 'Crime Or Violation' Issued, Costs NYC $75M

New York City has agreed to pay up to $75 million to settle a federal class action lawsuit accusing its police department of issuing hundreds of thousands of summonses that were later found to be without merit or probable cause, the city’s law department announced Monday.

There were a total of 900,000 warrants, issued from 2007 to 2015, that got dismissed for offenses like disorderly conduct, trespassing, and drinking in public, the New York Times reported.

The maximum compensation would be $150 per person per incident.

New York City's Law Department said it expected the settlement to be finalized soon and will need to be approved by Judge Robert W. Sweet of United States District Court in Manhattan after a hearing.

In the settlement, the city denied that officers issuing summonses were only doing it so that they could meet a minimum quota requirement. At the same time, the city did note that it would need to reiterate its ban on quotas and numerical performance.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs declined to comment on the agreement.

Reports have shown that a number of NYPD officers accused of malfeasance have gone on to get pay raises after being placed on modified duty pending investigations.

NYPD Officer Richard Haste, who shot unarmed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham to death during a drug bust in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother on Feb. 2, 2012, has received tens of thousands of dollars in increased compensation since the killing.

Haste made $30,000 more in 2016 than he did in the year of the shooting. He was paid more than $94,000 last year, according to reports. By the fiscal year 2015, his overtime brought his earnings to $88,614 and $94,364 for the fiscal year 2016, according to records. At the time of Graham’s death, Haste was earning about $10,000 in overtime, plus a $56,609 salary, records show.

“It’s an egregious example of the lack of police accountability that allows police abuses and killings to continue in communities of color,” according to a media advisory released Monday by advocacy group Communities United for Police Reform.