Thomas Donlon filed a lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams, alleging that the NYPD's Community Response Team (CRT) acted as a "rogue" unit responding only to City Hall. The 251-page complaint accuses Adams of using the CRT for political gain, stating it became an enforcement tool that undermined civil rights. The lawsuit references extensive reporting by ProPublica, highlighting Adams' close ties to the CRT and its operational shortcomings. A senior NYPD official had previously raised concerns about the unit's practices, including wrongful stops and lack of documentation.
The Community Response Team became the enforcement arm of Defendant Adams' political strategy, a tool for projecting 'tough on crime' optics at the expense of civil rights and constitutional law.
The suit draws extensively from a recent ProPublica investigation, which detailed how the mayor championed the CRT despite concerns within the Police Department about the unit.
'The Community Response Team speaks to the culture under Adams of willfully violating the constitutional rights of civilians and officers,' said John Scola, Donlon's lawyer.
In 2023, a senior NYPD official wrote a scathing internal audit after finding that CRT officers were wrongfully stopping New Yorkers and failing to document the incidents.
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