Yonkers pays nearly $3M in decade over police misconduct

Yonkers paid nearly $3 million to litigants in police misconduct cases from 2000 to 2009, according to figures provided to The Journal News following a Freedom of Information Law request.

That amounts to about $500 per officer per year on legal matters related to misconduct cases, though police officials have said that amount is low, and the figures appear to bear that out.

The New York Police Department, for example, averaged more than double that, or about $1,130 per year per officer on misconduct cases during the same time, according to data obtained by The Associated Press in 2010.

The NYPD comprises about 34,500 officers.

In Yonkers, police Commissioner Charles Gardner said litigation had continued to decline since 2010.

"It should be noted that citizen complaints against members of our department have steadily decreased over the past three years," he said. "During the same time frame, we have also experienced a corresponding decrease in certain police-related litigation."

Attorney Randolph McLaughlin said police hardly facilitated the complaint process, at least for his client, Danny Squicciarini, who tried to file one in 2011 after an encounter with two officers, including Alex Della Donna.

"They refused to let him file a complaint. They said, 'Oh, we don't have any cops like that. We don't know what you're talking about … Nah, get out of here,' " McLaughlin said.

Later, during a second encounter with the same officers a few months later, the officers brought up the attempted complaint, according to a suit filed by McLaughlin and his partner, Debra S. Cohen.

"They said, 'We remember you. You're the one who tried to file a complaint against us,' " McLaughlin said.

Yonkers police paid $2,995,523 to settle 48 cases of police misconduct and brutality from 2000 through 2009, and they paid an additional $2,077,990 to settle 52 other cases against the department that did not involve misconduct, incidents like police cruiser crashes or station accidents.

Those 100 cases the department settled or lost in court are a little less than a fifth of the 515 cases filed against the city in that time, meaning that 415 cases were dismissed or otherwise won by the city in court.

The data provided to The Journal News was a portion what the newspaper originally asked for in FOIL requests submitted in July.

The city declined requests to turn over personnel records for officers Alex Della Donna and William Pataky or civilian complaints against the officers, or to say whether the two had ever been disciplined because of a complaint.

The city also declined requests to turn over how much each of the officers had cost Yonkers in settlements or judgments.

The city did turn over dozens of pages of minutes from the department's Professional Standards Review Committee, a committee composed of police and residents that meets monthly and analyzes civilian complaints.

But those minutes did not include details of the complaints or say which officers were involved in the complaints, only that a given complaint had been discussed and that action had been taken. The minutes typically do not specify what type of action.

Twitter: @erikshilling