A morally questionable rule is being used by the NYPD to harass over 1000 tenants a year and boot several hundred out of their homes, sometimes permanently – without providing victims of this heavy-handed practice with immediate opportunity to enter an enquiry or response to the action in a courtroom and with almost no legal protection and few redress options ever being made available. Pro-Publica shares one woman’s story.
New York City resident Ms. Jameela El-Shabazz became the victim of a, “nuisance abatement action, a little-known type of lawsuit that gives the city the power to shut down places it claims are being used for illegal purposes. In May when police broke into Ms. El-Shabazz’s apartment and arrested her for criminal possession of cocaine, a court-ordered chemical analysis identified the police-seized powder seized as eggshells. Ms. El-Shabazz uses it in a Nigerian religious ceremony.