New York City has been sanctioned for not preserving documents in a civil rights class action alleging police improperly set quotas for the number of summonses each officer must issue.

Southern District Judge Robert Sweet said the New York City Police Department was “grossly negligent” in allowing documents to be destroyed knowing they could be relevant to the case.

He also faulted a police order on the routine destruction of documents, including summonses—an order that “included information on how to utilize an industrial shredding truck to destroy documents en masse.”