The NYCLU said it filed the request as part of an effort to determine if race is playing an inappropriate role in police shootings. The NYCLU says the NYPD denied the request in May 2008 but gave the information to the RAND research group, which did not discuss race in its report on the department requested by police Commissioner Raymond Kelly after the Bell shooting.
The suit filed Monday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan seeks the release of the information to the public.
The NYCLU said that in years past about 90 percent of people shot by police were black or Hispanic. The NYPD said the finding comports with the fact that 98.6 percent of all shooting suspects in the last six months were black or Hispanic, as were 97.5 percent of their victims.
The city's Law Department said it hadn't received the legal papers but would review them upon receipt.
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