NYC Paid $800 Million for NYPD Misconduct.
Here's Who's Really Footing the Bill.
$117 million in 2025 alone. Not one dollar came from the officers involved. I'm Koenig Pierre — Brooklyn personal injury lawyer — and this is the story your tax bill isn't telling you.
The Number That Should Make Every New Yorker Angry
I'll be honest with you. I'm a Brooklyn personal injury lawyer. I take the 2 train. I get jerk chicken from Peppa's on Flatbush. My clients are your neighbors — the delivery guy, the grandmother who slipped on a broken sidewalk, the kid who got stopped walking home from school. When I see these numbers, it's not data to me. It's people I know.
So here's the number: in 2025, New York City paid $117,251,230.82 — yes, down to the penny — to settle 1,044 police misconduct lawsuits. According to AEE Law's 2026 analysis and the Legal Aid Society's Cop Accountability Project, that's four years in a row over $100 million. And since 2019, the running total has hit nearly $800 million.
Eight. Hundred. Million. Dollars.
Every single NYC resident paid about $14.12 for NYPD misconduct settlements last year alone. Over seven years, you've personally chipped in about $95.93. That's not going to fix a pothole on Utica Avenue or keep a school library open. It's going straight to settlements for cases the city could have prevented.
Here's what really gets under my skin though. That money doesn't come from the NYPD budget. It doesn't come from the officers who did the harm. It comes out of the city's general fund — the same bucket that's supposed to pay for everything else. And the qualified immunity reform bills in Albany that would actually make officers personally responsible? Still going nowhere. The city just keeps writing checks and nobody at the top changes how they operate.
Wait — Who Actually Pays These Settlements?
This is probably the first question I get from clients after something bad happens with police. "Do I sue the cop?" And I have to explain something that shocks people every single time: no. You sue the City of New York. The officer who handcuffed you illegally, who shot you with a stun gun, who helped put an innocent person in a cell for 20 years — that officer is almost never writing a personal check.
Here's how the money actually moves:
- You sue the City of New York — not the individual officer
- The city's own Law Department shows up to defend the case
- If the city settles, the money comes out of the general fund — your tax money
- The officer goes back to work. In most cases, nothing changes for them personally.
The NYPD's budget for 2026 is $6.15 billion. The misconduct settlements — all $117 million of them — don't touch that budget. They come from a completely separate pot. So there's no financial pain felt inside the department. No budget cuts. No consequences that hit where it would actually matter. That's why the number keeps climbing every year.
Filing a civil rights claim against the city is often the only lever that works. It's not just about getting money for what happened to you — it's the only real consequence in the system right now. Every settlement is a small signal that this behavior has a cost. Without it, there's nothing.
Real Cases. Real Money. Real People.
I want to put some faces on these numbers. Every one of those 1,044 cases that settled in 2025 is a real person who had their life turned upside down — and then had to fight to get any acknowledgment of it at all. Here are some of the ones that cost the most, because they need to be said out loud.
About $42 million of last year's settlements were for wrongful convictions. And $28 million of that was for things that happened more than 20 years ago. Let that land for a second. Somebody spent two decades in a cell for something they didn't do. Then the city cuts a check from your taxes. And the people responsible? Still collecting pensions.
This Isn't Happening Somewhere Else. It's Happening Here.
I don't write about Manhattan precincts. My clients are in Flatbush. East New York. Brownsville. Crown Heights. And the data is very clear that those are exactly the communities carrying the most weight of this problem.
If you live on Church Avenue, Nostrand, or anywhere between Flatbush and East Flatbush, your neighborhood is covered by the 67th Precinct. According to ProPublica's CCRB database, the 67th has officers with multiple substantiated misconduct allegations still on the job. In one case documented by Gothamist, a detective who spent over a decade at the 75th Precinct — Brooklyn's most-sued command — racked up a lawsuit history with settlements paid on his behalf, then got promoted and transferred to the 67th in East Flatbush. Promoted. Transferred. Still on the force. If something happened to you in that precinct, I want you to know that history because it matters to your case.
The 75th Precinct covers East New York and Cypress Hills. It is, by the data, the most sued precinct in New York City — 91 federal civil rights lawsuits since 2015 and $9.1 million in settlements according to the Legal Aid Society's CAPstat database. The NYC Comptroller's September 2025 report confirmed the 75th as one of only four precincts citywide with 100+ excessive force CCRB complaints in the last three years, with settlements topping $3 million since 2019. And the Comptroller's own analysis found that more than 85% of residents in these high-complaint precincts are Black or Hispanic/Latino. That is not a coincidence. It is a documented, measurable pattern. Source: Patch / Brooklyn Paper · NYC Comptroller Report
Flatbush. East New York. Brownsville. Bed-Stuy. These aren't just ZIP codes — they're where this problem is most concentrated and where the people I represent live. If something happened to you or someone you love in one of these communities, you are not alone. And you have rights that are worth fighting for.
More Cops Coming. What That Means for You.
Now I want to talk about something that's happening right now that nobody in the legal world is connecting to this data publicly. Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to expand the NYPD. More officers. More patrols. More presence on the street. He's doing this while the city is already staring down a $5.4 billion deficit and while simultaneously proposing a $22 million cut to the NYPD's own budget. Make that make sense.
I'm not here to argue whether more cops is good or bad for public safety. That's a political debate. What I'm here to tell you — as someone who files these claims for a living — is what happens to liability when you add bodies to a department with no new accountability measures in place:
The city settled 1,276 misconduct cases in 2019 — the last year of very high-stop policing before COVID. Then stops dropped and so did settlements. Now stops are climbing again — from 8,946 in 2021 to 25,386 in 2024. More encounters means more opportunities for things to go wrong.
Qualified immunity reform — the change that would make officers personally pay for misconduct — has been sitting in Albany going nowhere for years. Without it, every new officer the city hires is another potential liability exposure paid for by you, the taxpayer.
NYPD supervisors rate 99% of all stops as compliant with department policy. But the city is paying over $100 million a year in settlements that say otherwise. I'll let you work out what that tells you about internal oversight.
More officers without more accountability means more encounters, more friction, and more chances for something to go wrong — especially in the precincts I just told you about. This isn't fearmongering. This is the actuarial reality of what these numbers have shown, year over year.
A bigger NYPD without structural reform is not a public safety plan. It's a liability expansion. And right now, you're the one footing that bill. Watch what happens to the 2026 settlement numbers. I'll write about it when they drop.
What To Do If You're a Victim of Police Misconduct
If you or someone you care about has been beaten, wrongfully arrested, illegally searched, or had their rights stepped on by the NYPD — listen to me carefully. You have options. But the window closes fast, and the mistakes people make in the first 48 hours can sink an otherwise strong case. Here's what I tell every client:
🔑 Your immediate action plan (print this out)
- Document everything right now. Write down officer names, badge numbers, patrol car numbers, and the time and location. Your memory will fade. Text it to yourself if you have to.
- Get medical attention immediately. Even if you feel okay. A medical record creates an official timestamp of your injuries that insurance companies and courts can't ignore.
- Photograph every injury. Same day. Then again in 48 hours. Bruises get darker. Document the progression.
- Find witnesses and get their contact info. Strangers who saw what happened are some of the most powerful tools in a misconduct case.
- Do NOT give a recorded statement to any insurance company, city attorney, or investigator without speaking to a lawyer first.
- File a complaint with the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). This creates an official record and can uncover an officer's prior disciplinary history — which is gold in litigation.
- File your Notice of Claim within 90 days. The NYC Comptroller's eClaim portal lets you file online, 24/7. Complete the form in Adobe Reader — not your browser — attach your photos, and submit. You'll get a Claim ID receipt. Save it. You can also file in person or by certified mail. Deadline: 90 days from the incident. Not 91. Not 95. 90.
- Call a lawyer within 24–48 hours. Even if you file the Notice of Claim yourself, an attorney needs to review it before the city responds. Errors in the form can be used against you. The consultation is free.
The Deadlines That Can Kill Your Case
I've seen really good cases die because someone waited too long. Not because the facts weren't there. Not because the injury wasn't real. Because they missed a deadline. Suing the City of New York is not the same as suing your neighbor. There are rules that don't exist anywhere else, and if you don't know them, the city's lawyers absolutely will use that against you.
You have 90 days from the date of the incident to file a Notice of Claim with the NYC Comptroller. I'm not saying "try to file within 90 days." I'm saying if you miss day 90, your case is almost certainly gone. Courts rarely grant extensions. There's no getting back into the game. Ninety days. That's it.
Full Timeline of Deadlines
File your Notice of Claim with the NYC Comptroller's Office. This has to happen before any lawsuit. It needs to include the date, the location, what happened, your injuries, and the damages you're claiming. You can do it online at comptroller.nyc.gov/services/for-the-public/claims/e-filing. Don't wing it — call me first so we get the details right.
The city will likely schedule a 50-H hearing — it's basically a sworn interview where the city's lawyers ask you questions about the incident and your injuries before any lawsuit is filed. You have to show up. You have to answer. And what you say can help or hurt you. I've written a full guide to what happens at 50-H hearings — read it before you walk into that room.
This is your deadline to actually file a lawsuit in state court on most city tort claims, including police misconduct. It's separate from the Notice of Claim deadline — you have to hit both. Missing either one is fatal to your case.
If your case involves a constitutional violation — excessive force, wrongful arrest, civil rights — you may also have a federal claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which carries a 3-year statute of limitations. But even with the longer federal window, you still need that Notice of Claim filed within 90 days. Don't assume the federal deadline buys you extra time on the state side. It doesn't.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions I get most from Brooklyn clients after a police encounter. Plain answers. No legalese.
The city has paid out nearly $800 million since 2019 because people fought back and won. That money exists because lawyers filed claims, went to hearings, and refused to let the city's Law Department run out the clock. Your case could be part of that. But only if you move. If you or someone you know had a bad encounter with the NYPD — in Flatbush, East New York, anywhere in Brooklyn — call me at 1-800-946-4616. The call is free. The consultation is free. And if I take your case, you pay nothing unless we win. The clock is already running.
✓"The desire to make my clients whole is the driving force of my professional existence."
Koenig Pierre is a Brooklyn-based personal injury lawyer fighting for injured New Yorkers across the five boroughs and the greater metro area. He writes the NYC Liability Watch blog to give everyday people the legal knowledge they need — in plain language, no legalese. Whether it's a car accident on Flatbush, a slip on an icy stoop in Crown Heights, or a civil rights violation by the NYPD, Koenig's mission is simple: hold the right people accountable and get his clients every dollar they deserve.