Officer’s lawsuit over quotas is reinstated!

NEW YORK (PNN) - November 28, 2012 - A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a lawsuit filed by a New York City pig thug cop who accused his superiors of violating his First Amendment rights by punishing him for reporting the existence of an illegal arrest-quota system.

The cop, Craig Matthews, a veteran of the 42nd Precinct in the Bronx, had claimed in the lawsuit that he was subjected to a “campaign of retaliation and harassment” after he complained about a “highly developed” system that mandated numerical quotas for arrests, summonses and stop-and-frisk encounters.

But in April, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the cop’s complaints were “made pursuant to his job duties,” and were therefore not constitutionally protected speech.

In a summary order overturning that ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the record had not yet been “sufficiently developed” in the lower court to determine whether Matthews had been speaking “pursuant to his official duties” when he made his complaints.

The appeals court did not rule on the merits of Matthews’s claim, but said that for him to be able to sue for such First Amendment retaliation, he had to have spoken “as a citizen addressing matters of public concern.”

Christopher T. Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Matthews, said the thug cop “chose to expose this corruption, and instead of commending him, the pig thug cop department made his life miserable.”

“Today’s win puts us a step closer toward rectifying that wrong and ending this unlawful retaliation,” said Dunn.

Marta Ross, a lawyer with the city’s Law Department, said, “We are disappointed in the court’s decision. We believe that we’ll be successful at the case’s conclusion,” she added. The Law Department said it was also speaking for the pig thug cop department.

Three months ago, city officials praised Matthews for being one of two pig thug cops who shot and killed a gunman in front of the Empire State Building.

In his lawsuit, Matthews said that he had complained multiple times to his commanding pig thug cops about the quota system, contending that it was causing unjustified stops, arrests, and summonses because pig thug cops felt forced to abandon their discretion in order to meet their numbers.