New York City to Pay $60,000 to Settle Lawsuit by Bronx Teachers Arrested for Questioning Police Treatment of Students

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The New York Civil Liberties Union and co-counsel Morrison & Foerster LLP today announced the settlement of a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of two high school teachers who were arrested, handcuffed and verbally abused by the New York Police Department without cause after they questioned police officers handcuffing students who had been involved in a fight.

The NYCLU filed the lawsuit after two Bronx teachers, Quinn Kronen and Cara Wolfson-Kronen, were wrongfully arrested. The city agreed to pay the teachers $60,000 to settle the case. The NYCLU continues to urge the NYPD and the City Department of Education to develop adequate protocols to limit the role of police officers in the schools and to provide training for police officers working in the special environment of the schools.

“We hope that this settlement will motivate New York City to solve the serious policing problems that affect everyone working or studying in our public school system,” Quinn Kronen said. “NYPD personnel must work as allies to teachers and school officials in promoting productive learning environments – both to prevent incidents like this from happening again and to ensure that the city’s students can receive the education they deserve.”

The NYCLU lawsuit described an incident in March 2005 in which police officers arrested English teacher Quinn Kronen and social studies teacher Cara Wolfson-Kronen at the New School for Arts and Sciences in the Bronx. Wolfson-Kronen (who is married to Quinn Kronen) had called 911 for medical assistance for a student who had been injured during a fight in a school bathroom. The police arrived at Kronen’s classroom and handcuffed some of the students who had been fighting, even though school personnel had already broken up the fight and separated the students.

According to the complaint, when Kronen questioned the officers’ decision to handcuff the students, the officers yelled at him and ordered him to be quiet. The complaint also states that Wolfson-Kronen, who was in the classroom, objected to the officers’ actions and was immediately handcuffed and arrested. Police made her wait handcuffed in the hall in front of her students, and then forced her to wait outside the building, where the temperature was below freezing.

The police then arrested Kronen as well, and both teachers were held at the 41st Precinct in the Bronx for nearly two hours before being released with summonses for disorderly conduct. The charges against both teachers were dismissed at arraignment.

“Teachers must be able to expect that if they call the police onto their campuses they will be treated lawfully and with respect,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the NYCLU. “Our hope is that New York City will work to avoid future lawsuits by implementing protocols that make it clear that unless there is an immediate safety threat, police personnel must defer to educators’ judgments about how to handle disciplinary matters in their schools.”

A report released this spring by the NYCLU and the American Civil Liberties Union, Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Schools, documents in detail the excesses of the policing operation in New York City’s public schools and the penalties that students have paid as a result of those operations. The report also offers realistic recommendations for addressing the system’s problems. A copy of the report is available at: www.aclu.org/racialjustice/edu/29052pub20070318.html. The NYCLU today pledged to continue working with educators, students, families, community members, and city officials to achieve these urgently needed reforms.

The NYCLU’s action was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The full settlement is available at: www.nyclu.org/pdfs/kronen_settlement_053107.pdf

The original complaint is at: www.nyclu.org/pdfs/kronen_complaint_030306.pdf