New York City shelled out another $117 million in 2025 for police-misconduct claims—pushing the post-2019 tab toward $800 million even as the NYPD boasts the lowest homicide numbers since the 1950s. The disconnect shows why “defund” battles still rage despite falling crime.
The 2025 snapshot: 1,044 cases, $117 million
New York settled 1,044 police-misconduct lawsuits last year, the busiest docket since 2019, according to a Legal Aid Society analysis. Checks ranged from $1.7 million for four protesters beaten during 2020 George Floyd marches to $24.1 million for Eric Smokes and David Warren, who each spent two decades in prison for a 1986 robbery later pinned on a corrupt detective.
Wrongful convictions dominate the ledger
Roughly $42 million of the 2025 payouts trace to overturned convictions. Smokes and Warren’s combined $24.1 million is the single largest line item, but Steven Lopez—the so-called “sixth Central Park Five” member—collected $3.9 million after accepting a coerced plea in 1989. Cases stemming from the 1980s and 1990s keep climbing because New York’s five-year statute of limitations on civil-rights claims starts only when a conviction is formally vacated.
Brutality settlements keep pace
- $5.75 million to a man who says an officer tased him in the left eye, blinding him.
- $5.2 million split among nine people framed by two Brooklyn narcotics officers now convicted of perjury.
- $1.7 million for baton strikes and “kettling” tactics used on June 4, 2020, in Crown Heights.
Those totals do not include claims settled at the comptroller level before a lawsuit is filed, meaning the real 2025 cost is larger than $117 million.
Why the city, not the NYPD, cuts the check
Unlike Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia—where police-budget lines are directly docked—New York routes settlement money through its general-obligation fund. The arrangement severs financial pain from departmental policy, muting internal pressure to overhaul training or discipline. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new budget trims only $22 million from the NYPD’s $6.4 billion allocation while the city stares at a $5.4 billion overall deficit.
Historical flashback: stop-and-frisk roots still sprout cases
A federal monitor told a Manhattan court last week that the NYPD continues to under-report stop-and-frisk encounters and shows “unacceptably low compliance” with the 2013 Floyd v. City of New York reforms. Those constitutional violations feed today’s settlement pipeline; roughly 28 percent of 2025 payouts stem from incidents more than 20 years old, many tied to discredited trespass and weapons stops.
The accountability vacuum in numbers
- Officers involved in the 2025 settlements remain on the force or retired with pensions in all but a handful of cases.
- The Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated misconduct in only 14 percent of complaints last year, its lowest rate since 2017.
- Internal NYPD trials ended in guilty findings just 28 percent of the time, according to city data.
Bottom line: low crime ≠ low liability
Even as shootings and homicides dip to levels not seen since the Eisenhower era, the price tag for past—and ongoing—misconduct keeps climbing. At the current pace, New York will cross the $1 billion threshold for police settlements before the decade ends, equivalent to the construction cost of 20 new public schools. Until settlements hit the NYPD’s own budget line, watchdogs argue the department lacks a direct incentive to fix the training, supervision, and disciplinary gaps that keep the checks flowing.
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