Lawsuit: Port Authority Cops Targeted Queer Men
Police accused of going after gays in bus terminal bathroom; trial forthcoming
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
A federal judge hearing
a lawsuit that charges
the Port Authority Police
Department (PAPD)
maintained a policy of targeting
gay and gender non-conforming
men for arrest in a men’s room at
the agency’s Midtown bus terminal
effectively ruled that the lawsuit
can go to trial.
“This decision affi rms the discriminatory
treatment our clients
have been suffering for years at the
hands of the Port Authority Police
Department,” said Molly Griffard,
a legal fellow with the Legal Aid
Society’s Cop Accountability Project,
in a press release. “These illegal
practices have been previously
raised with the PAPD but, to date,
the department has refused to offer
training or discipline offi cers
to curb these problematic tactics.
The PAPD must be held to account
for these policies that grossly infringe
on our clients’ most basic
civil rights.”
The lawsuit, which was launched
in 2017, stems from the 2014 arrests
of gay and gender non-conforming
men in a single men’s room in the
bus terminal. Two of the men, Cornell
Holden and Miguel Mejia, are
the named plaintiffs. Legal Aid is
working with Winston & Strawn
LLP, a private law fi rm.
The plaintiffs asserted that the
Port Authority police had a “policy
and/or pattern and practice of unlawful
discrimination” and “targeting,
and false arrests of men using”
the bathroom. That included “a pattern
and practice of targeting and
wrongly arresting men that such
offi cers perceive as gay, and/or gender
non-conforming, on baseless
charges including public lewdness
and exposure, falsely claiming that
they were engaged in illegal conduct
at PABT restroom urinals.”
In a February decision, John
Koeltl, the judge who is hearing
the case in the Southern District
of New York, wrote that “a reasonable
factfi nder could fi nd that the
PAPD failed to train or to supervise
and discipline plainclothes offi -
A lawsuit insisting that Port Authority cops targeted LGBTQ people in a restroom is heading to trial.
cers” and that “this failure to train
or to supervise and discipline was
a proximate cause of the plaintiffs
being unlawfully subjected to arrest
without probable cause and to
arrest in violation of their rights to
equal protection.”
The case was bolstered by a 2005
federal lawsuit brought by Alejandro
Martinez, who was arrested
by Port Authority police on a public
lewdness charge in the PATH Station
in the World Trade Center in
2000. Martinez was acquitted at a
state trial and later won his federal
lawsuit. The evidence in that case
said the Port Authority police had
quotas for public lewdness arrests.
The offi cers who arrested Martinez
allegedly threatened him with violence
and directed anti-gay slurs at
him and six other men who were
arrested on the same day and in
the same location as Martinez.
There is no allegation in the 2014
arrests that police used anti-gay
slurs or threatened those arrested
with violence.
During the Martinez federal
trial, a Port Authority police offi cer
gave testimony that showed a clear
pattern of a large number of arrests,
from 25 to 46, occurring in
a few hours in two years or over a
period of four months in one year.
That pattern suggests that police
were not responding to a specifi c
condition or complaint, which is
the standard police defense in
lewdness arrests, but were simply
compiling numbers.
That same pattern was seen in
the current lawsuit, according to
a report produced for the plaintiffs
by John Pfaff, a law professor at
Fordham University.
Looking at Port Authority police
public lewdness data from 2013
through 2017, Pfaff wrote that just
nine people were arrested for public
lewdness in 2013, or 1.2 percent of
the 750 arrests made that year. In
2014, public lewdness accounted for
13 percent of the 448 arrests made
that year. Over the next three years,
public lewdness arrests by the Port
Authority police accounted for three
percent or less of all arrests in those
years. The New York Times published
an article on the 2014 arrests
in October 2014 after Legal Aid complained
about the arrests.
LEGAL
REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID
Michael Coan, who was an expert
witness for the Port Authority,
wrote in his report that the execution
of the arrests was consistent
with “sound police tactics and probable
cause for the crimes of which
they were charged.” Coan, who had
a long career in the NYPD before
becoming chief of department for
the MTA police, also found no evidence
of anti-gay or bisexual bias
or a pattern or practice of targeting
gay or gender non-conforming men
for wrongful arrests.
The parties are currently engaged
in settlement discussions,
which are mandated by the court.
“The court requires that the parties
engage in a settlement conference
at this stage of the case, and
we are hopeful that in light of the
court’s recent decision on summary
judgment, the Port Authority,
which is now facing a trial, will be
willing to embrace reforms which
will put an end to their discriminatory
practices,” Seth Spitzer,
a partner at Winston & Strawn,
wrote in an email.
Citing ongoing litigation, the
Port Authority declined comment.
GayCityNews.com | MARCH 25 - APRIL 7 , 2021 9
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