The first Black woman to run the department came aboard just before the pandemic shutdown and quickly had to oversee the city's safety as protests broke out.
The New York Attorney General, the Legal Aid Society, and the New York Civil Liberties Union announced what they called a “landmark agreement” with the New York Police Department that “significantly reforms” the department’s policing of protests to protect “the public and members of the press from excessive use of force,” according to a news release.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court unanimously sided with anti-abortion protesters who were arrested in Washington, D.C. after they wrote anti-abortion chalk messages in summer 2020 during the height of the protests following the murder of George Floyd. The anti-abortion protests argued that their First Amendments rights were violated when they were arrested, and the court agreed that their lawsuit can continue.