A federal class action lawsuit has been filed against the city and its police department alleging false arrest for violating an unconstitutional anti-loitering law. The lawsuit claims the city of New York and the New York Police Department (NYPD) continued to arrest people under an anti-loitering law that was thrown out in 1983. If the case is certified as a class action, it will represent more than 2,500 people arrested since the law was abolished.
The two men who filed the suit were arrested in March 2007 as they were walking through the New York Port Authority. One was an agency coordinator and the other was a public assistant. The two old friends ran into each other at the bus depot and were catching up on old times. The men were arrested and strip searched, but charges were later dropped. The men were taken into custody under the law that made a person guilty of loitering if they were unable to give a "satisfactory explanation" as to why they were in a transportation facility.
