Curbs Urged for NYPD Dealings With Protesters

Civil rights lawyers urged a judge Thursday to restore restrictions on the city’s police force, calling it “out of control” for asking antiwar protesters political questions.

The lawyers said police asked protesters who had been arrested their party affiliations, their views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and whether they thought the United States should have become involved in World War II.

Several civil rights attorneys signed court papers asking U.S. District Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. to reconsider his April 8 decision easing restrictions on police monitoring of political groups. The city asked Haight to relax the rules, part of a 1985 consent decree, so officers could better combat terrorism.

One of the attorneys, Martin Stolar, said the lawyers also want Haight to order the city to follow FBI guidelines issued last year on crime, racketeering and terrorism probes.

The court papers were filed after police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said last week that he was unaware that detectives had recently questioned hundreds of protesters about their political affiliations.

Kelly said he ordered the practice stopped.

Kelly said the questioning was voluntary, part of routine arrest processing.

Detectives used a demonstration debriefing form, which included spaces for personal data, along with sections for organization name, school name and “demonstration history.”

The civil rights lawyers said the questions demonstrated “an intelligence division that is out of control.”

City lawyer Gail Donoghue said the civil rights argument was without merit.

“The plaintiffs ignore the fact that the people who were questioned had been arrested because they had committed criminal acts,” Donoghue said.

“The fact that they were arrested at a demonstration does not insulate them from being asked questions about their conduct,” she said.