{"id":362792,"date":"2026-10-02T12:33:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T12:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362792\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T12:33:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T12:33:03","slug":"brooklyn-da-brings-back-warrant-clearing-event-as-quality-of-life-tickets-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362792\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn DA brings back warrant-clearing event as quality-of-life tickets surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooklyn’s district attorney will clear residents\u2019 outstanding warrants for failing to answer minor summonses this weekend, after a recent uptick in NYPD quality-of-life tickets helped create a \u201cstaggering backlog<\/a>\u201d of such cases.<\/p>\n

DA Eric Gonzalez said he will host an event at a Brooklyn church on Saturday to clear warrants that people got after they failed to respond to a criminal summons. The event will be held at the Bridge Street AME Church on Stuyvesant Avenue in Bed-Stuy from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re for really low-level offenses: being in the park after dark, walking a dog off a leash, maybe smoking a cigarette where you’re not allowed to smoke,\u201d Gonzales told Gothamist.<\/p>\n

The event comes after the NYPD cracked down<\/a> on quality-of-life infractions across the city. In the last fiscal year, officers wrote more than 220,000 summonses for minor civil and criminal violations across the city, public data shows. That\u2019s an increase of 13% compared to the prior fiscal year, according to a report released by City Hall<\/a> in September.<\/p>\n

Gothamist previously reported that hearing officers threw out<\/a> nearly half of all the tickets NYPD officers issued for civil violations, mostly because they were defectively written or not properly served. Critics of the quality-of-life crackdown say the amount of summonses being thrown out shows the increase in ticketing is a waste of everyone\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need for an initiative like this \u2026 raises serious questions about why so many of these summonses are being issued in the first place,\u201d said Dawn Ryan, attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society’s Brooklyn trial office.<\/p>\n

NYPD spokesperson Bradley Weekes said the number of criminal summons issued by NYPD officers this year is virtually flat compared to the same period last year. He added that NYPD officers are responding to 311 calls to address concerns from New Yorkers. <\/p>\n

In a statement, City Hall spokesperson Sam Raskin said Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration is supportive of Saturday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur administration commends District Attorney Gonzalez\u2019s efforts to help New Yorkers clear old summons warrants, which can make it harder for New Yorkers’ to get a job, obtain housing or apply for citizenship, and can deter people from engaging with law enforcement,\u201d Raskin said.<\/p>\n

‘Less safe’<\/p>\n

In an interview with Gothamist, Gonzalez said he doesn\u2019t want to micromanage or second-guess criminal tickets issued by the NYPD, but added that he\u2019s concerned the tickets are being issued predominately to low-income people of color who may not have the means to pay a fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always been concerned about the racial disparities in these tickets. You know, 85% of these tickets are given to people of color. That has not changed over the years,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cThe enforcement is often done in the poorest neighborhoods, where the cost of the tickets have the biggest affordability issues for folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that warrants caused by low-level summonses may make people skeptical of engaging with law enforcement. Criminal warrants are issued to anyone who doesn’t respond to a criminal summons by its deadline.<\/p>\n

If that person later encounters law enforcement, including in ordinary situations like traffic stops, they will likely be arrested.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez said people with warrants may mistrust and avoid law enforcement, which he said is bad for everyone\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI think it keeps us less safe, quite frankly, if people try to avoid the police or prosecutors because they have a summons warrant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

‘Begin Again’<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s event is part of what the DA\u2019s office calls the \u201cBegin Again\u201d program aimed at clearing warrants caused by outstanding criminal summonses.<\/p>\n

It will be the first such event since a similar program was paused in 2018.<\/p>\n

It has now restarted the program because it is \u201curgently needed,\u201d the DA\u2019s office said in a press release, noting New Yorkers have hundreds of thousands of outstanding criminal warrants related to unpaid tickets.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez is partnering with the New York Legal Aid Society, local judges and other elected officials to host the event. People who show up will have access to free legal services provided by the DA\u2019s office and the Legal Aid Society. After they consult with one of the free attorneys, they\u2019ll be taken to a room in the church that will serve as a temporary courtroom, where a judge will address any warrants and other penalties.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aMost of these tickets will get dismissed by the judges, as would happen if you went to regular court,\u201d Gonzalez told Gothamist.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez said his office sent letters to people in the surrounding areas who have warrants for unpaid criminal quality-of-life tickets \u2014 and stressed that they won\u2019t be arrested if they show up to the event.<\/p>\n

Undocumented New Yorkers with outstanding warrants related to summonses will also not face immigration consequences if they attend the event, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn’s district attorney will clear residents\u2019 outstanding warrants for failing to answer minor summonses this weekend, after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-362792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}