New York City Cops Seek Federal Court Approval to Mass Arrest Protesters Without Warning

A legal fight from Occupy resurfaces amid 2014's police brutality protests.

by Steven Rosenfeld

December 19, 2014 | As New York Mayor Bill de Blasio takes high-profile steps to try to curtail abusive policing— sympathizing with protesters over Eric Garner’s death and vowing to reform the notorious Rikers Island prison—the city’s Law Department is going back to federal court to seek new authority to make mass arrests at protests.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has agreed to meet in full to reconsider an August ruling that sided with protesters and chastized the New York Police Department for the way it herded and arrested 700 Occupy protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge in fall 2011. It concluded that the cops violated the protesters' constitutional rights and the police did not have “cause” to arrest them.