The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil jurisdiction, with most criminal matters handled in County Court.
The Criminal Court of the City of New York is a court of the State Unified Court System in New York City that handles misdemeanors and lesser offenses, and also conducts arraignments and preliminary hearings in felony cases.
On October 29, 1984, Eleanor Bumpurs was shot and killed by the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The police were present to enforce a city-ordered eviction of Bumpurs, an elderly and disabled African American woman, from her New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) public housing unit at 1551 University Avenue in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx.
Sean Bell, an unarmed African American, was shot and killed by undercover New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers in the borough of Queens on November 25, 2006. Bell and two of his friends were shot when both plainclothes and undercover NYPD officers fired a total of 50 rounds. Bell's friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were severely wounded. The incident sparked fierce criticism of the New York City Police Department from members of the public and drew comparisons to the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo. Three of the five detectives involved in the shooting went to trial on charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter, first- and second-degree assault, and second-degree reckless endangerment; they were found not guilty.
The New York City Sheriff's Office (NYCSO), officially the Office of the Sheriff of the City of New York, is the primary civil law enforcement agency for New York City. The Sheriff's Office is a division of the New York City Department of Finance, operating as an enforcement arm. The Sheriff's Office handles investigations concerning cigarette tax enforcement, real estate property/deed fraud and other matters deemed necessary by the Department of Finance.
The Judiciary of New York is the judicial branch of the Government of New York, comprising all the courts of the State of New York.
The New York County District Attorney, also known as the Manhattan District Attorney, is the elected district attorney for New York County (Manhattan), New York. The office is responsible for the prosecution of violations of New York state laws. The current district attorney is Alvin Bragg. He was elected in 2021 to succeed Cyrus Vance Jr.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is structured into numerous bureaus and units. As a whole, the NYPD is headed by the Police Commissioner, a civilian administrator appointed by the Mayor, with the senior sworn uniformed officer of the service titled "Chief of Department". The Police Commissioner appoints the First Deputy Commissioner as the department's second-in-command and the Chief of Department as the department's highest ranking uniformed officer. The commissioner also appoints a number of deputy and assistant commissioners who do not have operational command and are solely for support and administrative function. The department is divided into twenty bureaus, six of which are enforcement bureaus. Each enforcement bureau is further subdivided into sections, divisions, and units, and into patrol boroughs, precincts, and detective squads. Each bureau is commanded by a bureau chief. There are also a number of specialized units that are not part of any of the bureaus and report to the Chief of the Department.
Throughout the history of the New York City Police Department, numerous instances of corruption, misconduct, and other allegations of such, have occurred. Over 12,000 cases have resulted in lawsuit settlements totaling over $400 million during a five-year period ending in 2014. In 2019, misconduct lawsuits cost the taxpayer $68,688,423, a 76 percent increase over the previous year, including about $10 million paid out to two exonerated individuals who had been falsely convicted and imprisoned.
Bruce McMarion Wright was an American jurist who served on the New York State Supreme Court. Judge Wright was also the father of Geoffrey D.S. Wright, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, and Keith L.T. Wright, a member of the New York State Assembly.
The Detective Bureau is one of 14 bureaus within the New York City Police Department and is headed by the three-star Chief of Detectives. The Detective Squad was formed in 1857 with the Detective Bureau later formed in 1882.
The 2011 Manhattan terrorism plot was a conspiracy by two Muslim Arab-Americans to bomb various targets in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, United States. They had planned to attack an unspecified synagogue and one of them expressed interest in blowing up a church and the Empire State Building. New York City law enforcement arrested the two suspects, 26-year-old Ahmed Ferhani and 20-year-old Mohamed Mamdouh, in a sting operation on May 11, 2011. Their plot was motivated primarily by "hatred of infidels and anti-semitism" according to the authorities.
Analisa Nadine Torres is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The Detectives Endowment Association of the City of New York is one of three major police unions representing police officers of the New York City Police Department. The other two being the Police Benevolent Association and Sergeants Benevolent Association.
Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black man, was fatally shot on November 20, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, by a New York City Police Department officer. Two police officers, patrolling stairwells in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)'s Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, entered a pitch-dark, unlit stairwell. Officer Peter Liang, 27, had his firearm drawn. Gurley and his girlfriend entered the seventh-floor stairwell, fourteen steps below them. Liang fired his weapon; the shot ricocheted off a wall and fatally struck Gurley in the chest. A jury convicted Liang of manslaughter, which a court later reduced to criminally negligent homicide.
Kalief Browder was an African American youth from The Bronx, New York, who was held at the Rikers Island jail complex, without trial, between 2010 and 2013 for allegedly stealing a backpack containing valuables. During his imprisonment, Browder was kept in solitary confinement for 800 days.
Robert Thomas Johnson is an American attorney and jurist serving as a justice of the New York State Supreme Court in the county of the Bronx. He was previously a New York City Criminal Court judge, an acting justice of the New York State Supreme Court, and a long-time Bronx County district attorney in New York City.
Darcel Denise Clark is an American attorney and prosecutor who has served as the Bronx County District Attorney since 2016. Clark is the first woman to hold that office, and the first woman of color to serve as a district attorney in the history of the State of New York.
George Floyd protests in New York City took place at several sites in each of the five New York City boroughs, starting on May 28, 2020, in reaction to the murder of George Floyd. Most of the protests were peaceful, while some sites experienced protester and/or police violence, including several high-profile incidents of excessive force. Looting became a parallel issue, especially in Manhattan. As a result, and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the city was placed under curfew from June 1–7, the first curfew in the city since 1943.
Juan Manuel Merchan is a Colombian-born American judge and former prosecutor. He is an acting justice of the New York State Supreme Court in New York County (Manhattan). He presided over the 2024 criminal trial of former US president Donald Trump, in which Trump was convicted. Merchan is the first judge in history to preside over the criminal indictment and conviction of a US President, and the first judge to hold a President in criminal contempt of court.
New York City Police Department 