The Legal Aid Society released an analysis of data revealing that the City paid out $67,663,389 million in lawsuits alleging police misconduct from January 1 to July 26, 2022, as reported by Gothamist.

This amount surpasses the $62,093,491 paid out in all of 2020 and only falls roughly 624,000 short of the payout for the entirety of 2019. At this rate, the City potentially payout over $115 million for calendar year 2022.

One of the largest payouts this period involves NYPD officers Pedro Rodriguez and Pavel N. Kuznetsov, who were sued for leaving a young New Yorker paralyzed, according to a lawsuit that settled for $12 million this past July.

“Everything we know about police misconduct points to this conclusion that culture is what drives this problem and that a small number of officers who commit repeated misconduct create a culture that spreads misconduct,” said Corey Stoughton, Attorney-in-Charge of the Special Litigation Unit for Legal Aid’s Criminal Defense Practice. “Interrupting that cycle is critical to changing the patterns of policing that we see in New York City.”