PROVIDED BY CNNNEXT.COM
"A court of appeals ruled Thursday that a New York Police Department officer who told his supervisors about an illegal quota system was protected by the First Amendment and may continue to sue the city for what he says was retaliation from his bosses.
Craig Matthews, an NYPD veteran of 17 years assigned to the 42nd Precinct in the Bronx, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of New York in 2012.
In the lawsuit, filed with the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Matthews alleged that he began suffering retaliation from his supervisors in 2008, after he told NYPD bosses about a quota system implemented in his precinct.
Police quotas — systems in which cops are required to make a given number of arrests and stops each week to beef up their precinct’s statistics — are illegal in New York City.
Critics say quotas are widespread and lead to arbitrary arrests that can derail innocent people’s lives, all while damaging the relationship between police and the communities they serve."
