Attorneys at The Legal Aid Society sounded the alarm after a cache of internal documents obtained by The Intercept revealed that the NYPD’s police academy training material for instructors and students includes virtually no guidance for protecting the first amendment rights of protesters.

The revelation arrives after a period of withering criticism sustained by the NYPD for brutality displayed by officers during last summer’s George Floyd-related protests.

Corey Stoughton, an attorney at The Legal Aid Society, which together with the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city over the police’s violent response, said the trainings contain merely “rhetorical commitments” to protesters’ rights, and are of little practical value.

“The tools you walk out of that training room with, as an officer, are all geared towards finding ways to justify the arrest of protesters,” Stoughton said, “rather than finding practical ways to facilitate peaceful protests and the exercise of free speech rights.”