Documents Show NYPD Has Paid $428 Million in Settlements Since 2009

According to documents published yesterday by investigative news site MuckRock, the NYPD has paid almost half a billion dollars in settlements in the last five years.

The source of that information, a spreadsheet titled "NYPD Closed Actions Commenced in 2009-2014 to Date," was given to MuckRock by the NYPD in response to a routine Freedom of Information request. It lists over 10,000 police-related settlements made by the city, ranging from $1 to $11,500,000.
Those numbers are in line with the findings of a 2010 AP investigation, which discovered nearly $1 billion in NYPD payouts over the previous decade. In 2012, Bloomberg News found the City of New York planned to spend $735 million on settling lawsuits, police and otherwise, almost six times what Los Angeles pays per capita.