Transgender Woman Charged With 'False Personation' Sues NYPD
Linda Dominguez. Photo:NYCLU/YOUTUBE
A transgender woman who says she was arrested by New York City police officers while walking through a park at night, mocked by officers while held in custody, and wrongly charged with “false personation” and criminal trespass, launched a civil rights-based lawsuit against the police department Tuesday.
Linda Dominguez, who is being represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV project team, is accusing the NYPD in her Bronx Supreme Court-filed lawsuit of discrimination tied to her transgender identity, malicious prosecution and bias-based profiling, among other claims.
The NYPD did not comment Tuesday on the specifics of Dominguez's lawsuit, but in a statement said that it is "committed to serving and meeting the needs of the LGBTQ community with sensitivity, equity, and effectiveness."
"To that end," a department spokeswoman added, "the NYPD has carefully and thoughtfully designed and implemented effective policies, training protocols, outreach initiatives, and disciplinary processes."
A Bronx resident and an activist in campaigns for the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming immigrants of color, Dominguez alleges that she was walking home from a bus stop through a park in April 2018 when three officers approached her speaking English, which she does not know well, according to the complaint and an NYCLU news release.
The officers allegedly asked for her name. Although Dominguez had legally changed her name in 2017 to align with her gender identity, she believed she was supposed to give her original name and did so, the suit and news release say.
The police then allegedly arrested her for being in the Bronx park after hours, taking her to the 44th precinct.
At the precinct, Dominguez spoke with a Spanish-speaking police officer, giving that officer both her former and current legal names while explaining that she’d changed her name because she is a transgender woman, the suit alleges.
The suit claims the police placed her in a cell alone overnight, while keeping her in pink handcuffs and mocking her repeatedly by calling her by male pronouns and by her former name.
She was charged with criminal trespass and false personation—a crime that occurs when one knowingly misrepresents one's actual name with intent to conceal true identity, the suit and news release said. The charges were later dismissed, the suit says.
At the heart of the complaint are allegations that, more than six years ago, the NYPD instituted new guidance for officers interacting with transgender people, but despite that, the department has not adequately trained its officers, and discrimination remains pervasive.
According to the news release, surveys in recent years have found that transgender New Yorkers report high rates of harassment by police, including a 2015 survey that found that 61 percent of transgender respondents in New York State experienced some form of harassment or mistreatment by police, and 58 percent reported feeling uncomfortable asking the police for help.
Moreover, according to the NYCLU, a 2017 report by the city’s inspector general found that many police officers have not been trained regarding the revised rules, and that the tracking complaints against officers is inadequate.
“The fact that Linda was actually charged with ‘false personation’ is absurd and outrageous, but it highlights how the NYPD continues to criminalize transgender people for existing,” said Bobby Hodgson, NYCLU staff attorney, in the release.
