Study links overtime to suits vs. cops

Cops who rack up the most overtime tend to get hit with more lawsuits, a Legal Aid Society analysis shows.

According to the analysis, cops who averaged 406 hours of overtime per year from 2015 to 2018 were sued five or more times in federal court — while officers who worked an average of 214 hours overtime a year during the same period weren’t involved in any lawsuits.

The trend doesn’t hold for straight time work, the analysis found. Cops who work 1,000 hours of straight time in a year, for example, don’t get sued any more often than cops who work 800 hours of straight time.

“These data show that the department allows its officers to rake in unlimited overtime without much concern for the lawsuits filed against them by New Yorkers alleging misconduct,” said Julie Ciccolini, an analyst with the special litigation unit at the society. “Our analysis makes it apparent once again that providing a monetary motivation to make arrests will result in more abusive and unconstitutional policing.”

The analysis, done via the society’s Capstat website, shows that as the number of lawsuits per officers increases, so does the average annual overtime. In all, 78 cops have five or more lawsuits. A total of 97 have four lawsuits while they were earning an average of 392 hours of overtime a year. A total of 242 cops have three or more while earning an average of 351 hours of overtime a year.

But critics lashed out at the analysis, calling it biased.

“The analysis stands to reason because the heavier overtime earners have heavier arrest activity and as a result, more engagement with suspects. The more engagement, the higher the risk for being sued,” said Michael Palladino, head of the Detectives’ Endowment Association.

And Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, bashed the analysis as “part of a concerted effort to delegitimize policing” with “personal attacks on uniformed public officials.”

NYPD spokeswoman Jessica McRorie said new lawsuits against officers are down 50% since 2014.

“The information included in the Legal Aid Capstat database is misleading at best,” she said.