The Legal Aid Society and the Legal Defense Fund condemned the New York City Police Department (NYPD) following the release of a report from the Independent Monitor that revealed officers failed to properly document almost 10,000 stops in 2025.

Officers are permitted to briefly detain individuals based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, but those stops must be reported, as mandated by a Court order.

“This report exposes a fundamental accountability failure at the NYPD: Thousands of New Yorkers are being stopped by police without those encounters ever making it into the official record,” said Karina Tefft, an attorney in the Special Litigation Unit at Legal Aid. “When officers fail to document stops, they shield their conduct from the very oversight mechanisms designed to identify unconstitutional policing and hold officers accountable.”

“More than a decade of federal monitoring should have put an end to this practice, yet the NYPD continues to operate without the transparency and accountability New Yorkers deserve,” she continued. “Mayor Mamdani campaigned on a different vision for public safety, but seven months into his Administration, he has continued too many of the failed policing practices he inherited.”