Westchester County resident Justin Cohen recounted stopping for food in the Bronx on his way to the casino with a friend on May 3, 2023. Police pulled him over, accusing the 35-year-old Black man of speeding. Then, officers allegedly searched him without his consent according to body camera footage.
“NYPD officers pulled me over in the middle of the night, subjected my friends and me to a humiliating search, and took my car away for no other reason than the color of my skin,” said Cohen in a statement. “This traumatizing experience has left a lasting impact on me. Now, anytime I get behind the wheel and see a police car, I feel my stomach drop.”
The officers did not find anything illegal but still arrested and detained him. They ultimately issued him a speeding ticket (which was later dismissed), before allegedly making him walk out of the precinct without his shoes. The Civilian Complaint Review Board, the city’s independent police oversight agency, investigated the incident and found the stop unlawful and racially biased.
Cohen now joins another Black man and the NAACP New York State Conference in suing the NYPD for allegedly targeting Black and Brown drivers in unconstitutional searches. The plaintiffs enlisted legal representation from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the Bronx Defenders, and corporate law heavyweight Milbank LLP. They announced the lawsuit on Thursday, Jan. 29, at the NYCLU offices.
“What we’re seeing now is stop-and-frisk on wheels,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “The routine and discriminatory searching of Black and Brown drivers by the NYPD: the numbers speak for themselves. Black and [Latino] drivers are respectively 10 and six times more likely to have their cars searched by the NYPD than white drivers in New York City.”
“This story is not a new one,” added NAACP New York State Conference Executive Director Chris Alexander. “This is a reality for Black New Yorkers. It’s been a reality for Black New Yorkers. It’s about time we start to address it in a more meaningful and significant way.”
The lawsuit focuses specifically on traffic searches, which face starker racial disparities than just the stops themselves. The constitutional threshold is also much higher. Warrantless vehicle searches require probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or consent.
Traffic searches generally skyrocketed by 83% from 2023 to 2024, according to the NYCLU’s analysis. The group also found police search Black and Brown drivers more frequently in all 78 precincts. They rarely recover a weapon.
The NYCLU built such findings from a trio of lawsuits last year. But these efforts also piggyback off the broader legacy of the Floyd litigation, which found the city liable (civil court’s version of guilt) for racist stop-and-frisk practices. Reforms included a federally-appointed monitor. Other similar cases sprang up at the time, including one led by NYCLU. Many led to settlements. However, most previous lawsuits addressed pedestrian encounters rather than vehicle searches.
Advocates in the case point to the NYPD’s specialized street teams dedicated to getting guns off the street. Christopher Oliver, the other individual plaintiff, claims he faced at least four illegal searches. Two incidents involved officers from a specialized street team, according to NYCLY supervising attorney Daniel Lambright.
“Anti-crime or street crime units were notoriously involved in a lot of racist policing in the past,” said Lambright. “These units were thought to be necessary to get the ‘worst of the worst.’ In reality, they just terrorized mass amounts of Black and Latino people. They killed Amadou Diallo. They killed Eric Garner.
“Mayor de Blasio got rid of them and then Eric Adams reconstituted them with different names. There’s the Neighborhood Safety Team, there’s the Community Response Team…what the stop-and-frisk monitor found was that much of their activity was centered on vehicle stops.”
During the press conference, several speakers, including Alexander, expressed optimism or confidence in Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But the case names his NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch as a key defendant for her allegedly central role in reestablishing such units under the previous Adams administration.
“They rely on racialized stereotypes about who’s carrying guns, and they need to use better proxies than race to determine who is carrying guns,” said Lambright.
My efforts to get your people, LITTLE ROCK LAW ENFORCEMENT and YOUR INFORMANTS to stop harassing me, defaming my name, conducting illegal searches and seizures of my home and car, to stop destroying and stealing my property has fallen on death ears. Your police people destroyed my Lexus vehicle, stole items from my home to include but not limited to MY: CASHMERE COAT, MY CASHMERE SCARF, sweaters, leather belts, silk petticoat, new nautica, warner, and olga under garments, calvin klein blazers, evan picone blazer, ralph lauren sweaters, calvin klein perfume gift sets, dolce and gabbana perfume gift sets, important papers and documents to include but not limited to: my birth certificate, my parents death certificate, my son birth certificate(who lives in another state)., settlement checks form SAM’S, and WAL-MART that were stolen out of my mailbox, my identity was stolen and your LAW ENFORCEMENT PEOPLE have gotten credits cards in my name and created massive debt. Packages that were scheduled for delivery by FED-EX, UPS, USPS, and AMAZON AND UNITED HEALTH CARE, WERE STOLEN and evidence of these deliveries, such as envelopes and packaging, was stolen and burned. YOU HAVE RUINED MY LIFE AND MY OVER ALL HEALTH AND MADE IT APPEAR TO EVERY BUSINESS THAT I HAVE FREQUENTED, THAT I AM SOME KIND COMMON CRIMINAL. I WANT MY LIFE BACK AND I WANT FINANCIAL RESTITUTION.
I HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY OPM, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 1090 TAX FORM SINCE 2016. MY SOCIAL SECURITY 1090 TAX FORM FROM THE BALTIMORE IS NONEXISTANT. I TRIED GETTING COPIES OF MY CREDIT REPORT FROM THE THREE REPORTING AGENCIES BUT WAS UNABLE TO DO SO.
I NEED YOUR LEGAL EXPERTISE. PLEASE HELP
JOYCE BRANCH
13123 QUAIL CREEK ROAD, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72206