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Questioning of Garner Protesters in New York Renews Concerns About Police Practices

Leighann Starkey, a doctoral student arrested during a Garner protest, said police detectives asked her what social media she used to keep track of the demonstrations and whether she was part of a protest group.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Last December, as people arrested during protests related to the death of Eric Garner waited to be released from Police Headquarters in Manhattan, an officer removed a 28-year-old woman from a holding cell there.

The woman, Leighann Starkey, a doctoral student who lives in Harlem, said recently that she was escorted to a separate area where she was asked by two detectives how she knew about the demonstrations, what social media she used to keep track of them and whether she was part of a protest group. One detective, she said, asked whether she had ties to terrorists.

Another protester held that night, Christina Wilkerson, said officers told her she would not be released until she had been questioned; she stayed in custody for about 12 hours. Ms. Wilkerson, a social worker who lives in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, added that detectives asked who employed her, whether colleagues had attended the demonstrations and who had organized them.

“It started to feel like an interrogation,” Ms. Wilkerson, 30, said. “I wondered whether they would continue monitoring me.”

The death of Mr. Garner during an attempted arrest last summer fueled protests and a national debate over police practices. And after a grand jury on Staten Island decided in December not to issue criminal charges against the police officer who used a chokehold on him, thousands of demonstrators took over major streets, bridges and highways in New York City, but there were few serious clashes with the police.

The post-arrest questioning of Ms. Starkey, Ms. Wilkerson and at least nine others during the Garner protests, which has not been previously reported, has renewed long-running concerns among civil liberties activists about police practices that may have a chilling effect on activities protected by the First Amendment, like protest and free speech.

The issue is of particular interest in New York City, where the 1985 settlement of a federal court case, Handschu v. Special Services Division, resulted in a consent decree that defined how the city’s police may investigate political activity.

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Sherlly Pierre, an elementary school teacher arrested at a Garner protest, said she was asked by the police why she had participated in the demonstrations, whether she had helped organize them and the time and place of the next protest.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

In 2003, the judge overseeing the Handschu settlement rebuked the Police Department when it emerged that Intelligence Division detectives had been using a document called the Demonstration Debriefing Form to record where arrested antiwar protesters went to school, their membership in organizations and their involvement in past protests. Police officials maintained that the questioning had been lawful but said that the department had stopped using the form and had destroyed a database derived from it.

Some civil liberties lawyers say the recent questioning appeared to be substantially similar to the questioning in 2003, with detectives in both instances focusing on political involvement rather than criminal behavior.

“When the police investigate political affiliations and political activities, that poses a serious threat to First Amendment rights,” the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Christopher Dunn, said. “The N.Y.P.D. should stop this immediately.”

Lawrence Byrne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for legal matters, said the questioning, which did not involve the Intelligence Division, had been conducted in accordance with the consent decree and department rules.

He added that the questioning began in late November, during protests connected to events in Ferguson, Mo., after a demonstrator in Times Square splattered Police Commissioner William J. Bratton with fake blood and detectives began seeing threats against officers on social media.

“The Detective Bureau began a process of interviewing defendants arrested during the protests,” Mr. Byrne said, “in an attempt to obtain information about the specific acts of violence, vandalism and threats directed at police officers, as well as the general threat environment relating to such acts.”

Police departments across the country have long sought to quietly gather information about those who they believe may be dangerous or disruptive, but federal court settlements in the 1970s and 1980s in cities like New York, Chicago and Memphis restricted some efforts after lawsuits argued that cataloging lawful behavior and subjecting people to special scrutiny because of political or religious activity violated the Constitution and deterred free speech and association.

Martin R. Stolar, a member of the National Lawyers Guild who was among those who filed the Handschu case in Federal District Court in Manhattan in 1971, said that he believed the questioning of the Garner protesters violated the 1985 consent decree. Lawyers in the case were discussing how to proceed, Mr. Stolar said.

“The police are saying that if you’re going to protest, we’re going to ask about your associations, your reason for being at the protest, your plans for future protests,” he said. “All of that is an infringement of the right to be free from government interference in your political activities.”

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New York City police in riot gear during a December protest.Credit...Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

It is not uncommon for detectives to ask people who have been arrested about a specific investigation or about continuing criminal activity in their neighborhood. But Eugene O’Donnell, a lawyer and a former police officer who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, said the questions described by the protesters seemed “to go beyond ordinary criminal debriefing or ordinary arrest processing” and raised concerns about why the Police Department was gathering information from protesters and how it would be used.

For years, such issues have been discussed within the context of the Handschu case, which has sometimes reflected changing perceptions of how to address issues of safety and surveillance.

The lawsuit asserted that the Police Department’s Special Services Division, or Red Squad, had violated the rights of political activists in the 1960s and 1970s by using wiretaps, undercover officers and provocateurs to monitor and disrupt their actions. The consent decree created guidelines that allowed the investigation of political groups only when there was specific information about criminal activity.

In 2003, after police officials argued that detectives needed greater latitude to investigate terrorism, Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. of Federal District Court in Manhattan, as overseer of the Handschu settlement, relaxed the guidelines.

Soon afterward, the New York Civil Liberties Union learned that the debriefing form had been used to question antiwar protesters. Lawyers later said the detectives also questioned protesters about topics like their political leanings and their views on Israel and Palestine. The questioning revealed “an N.Y.P.D. in some need of discipline,” wrote Judge Haight, who modified the consent decree to ensure that lawyers could seek to hold the city in contempt of court if the police violated people’s rights.

Some of those questioned in December said they were disturbed that detectives were gathering information related to a movement protesting actions by police officers.

Frank Roberts, who teaches at New York University, said he was asked what he was doing when he was arrested and whether he had attended meetings with other protesters. An elementary school teacher, Sherlly Pierre, said she was asked why she had participated in the demonstrations. A Baptist minister, Willa Rose Johnson, said she was asked about past protests. Benjamin Perry, a student at the Union Theological Seminary, said detectives asked whether classmates had attended demonstrations. Another seminary student, Shawn Torres, said detectives asked who was in charge of a student listserv discussing the protests and how to receive email messages from it.

Ms. Pierre, 28, from Harlem, said detectives also asked if she had helped organize the Dec. 3 protests and wanted to know when and where the next demonstrations would take place.

“What we were being asked had nothing to do with what we were being charged with,” she said. “It was like they were trying to find out where their problem was coming from so they could stifle it.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Questions to Protesters Revive a Legal Issue. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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