For far too long, black men and women have been treated differently by our criminal justice system. There has been no better example than the injustices we have witnessed over the last few months. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, an officer used his knee to immobilize and choke George Floyd despite pleas that he could not breathe. In Louisville, Kentucky, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police while residing in her home.

While this most recent string of police involved fatalities of Black men and women occurred outside New York, we have our own sordid history of racially motivated fatalities. Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, Patrick Dorismond, Akai Gurley, and Ramarley Graham are just a few of the names that come to mind. Moreover, the instances of racially disparate police misconduct that do not end in death is even more prevalent. There have been more recent instances of likely misconduct. For example, on Saturday, during an anti-police brutality rally, a New York City Police Department vehicle accelerated into a crowd of protesters. Data has also shown that the NYPD issued significantly more summons and arrests to Black individuals for COVID-19 related violations than to White individuals, notwithstanding the lower percentage of Black people in the NYC population. These tragedies and travesties have brought much needed attention to reforms that must be made to our city’s policing practices. The Metropolitan Black Bar Association (MBBA), as the largest association of Black attorneys and legal professionals in New York state, is advocating for the repeal of Civil Rights Law 50-a.

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