Port Authority cops will stop following LGBT into bathrooms to boost arrest numbers
Port Authority cops will no longer be the bathroom police, after settling a class action lawsuit that accused officers of targeting gay men for bogus lewdness arrests in its Midtown bus terminal’s restrooms.
The lawsuit, filed in 2017, contended that the agency’s cops were following gay and bisexual men and gender nonconforming people into the Port Authority Bus Terminal bathrooms in a cynical and biased attempt to boost quality-of-life arrest numbers.
Some Port Authority Police Department cops would stare over the privacy stalls at men they believed to be gay while they’re using the urinal, and even expose themselves to try and get a lewd reaction from their targets, according to lawsuit. Once the men left the bathroom, they’d be arrested by a team of PAPD officers.
Port Authority Bus Terminal at W. 42nd St. and Eighth Ave. in Midtown. (Mary Altaffer/AP)
“This kind of blatant homophobia has no place in policing, and the reforms achieved in this lawsuit aim to safeguard against future abuses,” said Molly Griffard, a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, which filed the lawsuit with Winston & Strawn
LLP.https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-port-authority-lgbtq-class-action-bathroom-settlement-20220601-bbc3uf25rffmxkowjjrgjlv4uy-story.html
Miguel Mejia arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on a warm summer evening eight years ago with plans to get a fresh tattoo in New Jersey. Before catching his bus, he made what he thought would be a quick stop at the men’s restroom.
But at the urinal, Mr. Mejia sensed he was being watched and, glancing to his right, saw a man in blue shorts smirking at him. Mr. Mejia ignored him and walked out. Then came a shoulder tap: Port Authority police officers said he was under arrest.
“I’m like, ‘What did I do? What’s the reason?’” said Mr. Mejia, who is now 51. “They said that I know what I did.”
Mr. Mejia was charged with public lewdness, which includes exposing oneself or performing sexual acts in public, but was acquitted at trial. He later learned that others had similarly disputed the accounts of Port Authority officers. So in 2017, he joined a class-action suit arguing that the agency was engaged in a pattern of “unlawful discrimination, targeting and false arrests.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/nyregion/port-authority-bathroom-patrols.html
Another plaintiff, Cornell Holden, 35, was arrested two months earlier, also at a Port Authority bathroom for public lewdness, charges which were later dismissed. He said that he overheard the officer who arrested him call a colleague — the man who Mr. Holden said was standing next to him at a urinal — “the gay whisperer.”
Others have reported similar experiences, including one man who had been in a 10-year relationship when he said he was falsely accused. He recalled an officer remarking “you gay people” as he was arrested and said that the experience led to a decline in his mental health.
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