New York City will fight 'frivolous' lawsuits against NYPD

NEW YORK (WABC) -- There's a seismic shift in policy in the way the City of New York handles lawsuits filed against the NYPD.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that the city will no longer offer settlements to "frivolous" lawsuits against New York police officers filed by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

For decades, the city's policy has been to settle such lawsuits, even in cases where officers were cleared of any wrong doing.

"I think it was long overdue that we called the question and said, you know what we're going to go to court, and we're not going to settle in the case where our officers did everything right and they were menaced, they were threatened with violence. We, we're going to go to court. We have a lot of lawyers," Mayor de Blasio said.

Mayor de Blasio says the city will add attorneys to its law department to fight frivolous cases.