By ADAM GOLDMAN
Associated Press

NEW YORK - A state Supreme Court judge has ordered the New York Police Department to hand over all race data in shootings by officers spanning a decade.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Hon. Joan Madden issued the opinion Dec. 15 after the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly in 2008.

Madden said the police department had not met its burden under the state's Freedom of Information Law to withhold the data.

"This new data will help us give New Yorkers the full story on police shootings," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a Dec. 21 prepared statement.

The NYCLU began collecting information on the NYPD after the fatal shooting of Sean Bell in 2006. The unarmed Bell died in a 50-shot barrage outside a Queens strip club while leaving his bachelor party on what would have been his wedding day.

The organization filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request in October 2007 asking for the NYPD's annual statistical reports on police shootings and data about the race of people shot at by police. The request covered the period between 1997 and 2006.

The police department agreed to part of the request but failed to provide information relating to people shot at but not struck by the NYPD.

The judge wrote that the NYPD "failed to provide adequate justification" for withholding this information. The NYPD had argued that the FOIL request was limited to people actually struck, wounded or killed by an NYPD officer.

Jesse Levine, an attorney with the city law department, said the decision was "wrong."

"We are reviewing it further and evaluating our legal options,'' he said.