FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Bronx lawsuit names the City of New York, Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch, and Psychemedics Corporation, and seeks to stop future use of disputed hair-testing methods against NYPD applicants and employees.

New York, New York — June 24, 2026 — Eric Sanders, Esq., of The Sanders Firm, P.C. announced today that it has filed a new human-rights and common-law action on behalf of Police Officer SHATORRA J. FOSTER against THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Police Commissioner JESSICA S. TISCH, and PSYCHEMEDICS CORPORATION.

The lawsuit, filed in Supreme Court, Bronx County, alleges retaliation, selective enforcement, victim-status discrimination, unlawful employment testing, and negligent testing, reporting, documentation, and interpretation arising from the NYPD’s decision to subject Foster to a purported “random” hair drug test on June 3, 2026.

According to the complaint, the June 3, 2026 test did not occur in a vacuum. Foster had already engaged in extensive protected activity, including counterclaims in Headley v. City of New York, et al., Index No. 155228/2025, Supreme Court, New York County, concerning alleged sexual harassment, sexual coercion, retaliation, abuse of authority, and sexual assault by Trevlyn O. Headley. Foster also submitted complaints and supplemental notices to NYPD’s Office of Equity and Inclusion and Internal Affairs Bureau concerning alleged investigative contamination, retaliation, selective enforcement, victim-status discrimination, and the Department’s failure to investigate or reassess a Headley-driven disciplinary case against her.

On May 31, 2026, Foster filed a Bronx County human-rights action, Foster v. City of New York, et al., Index No. 810713/2026E, challenging the Department’s alleged adoption, ratification, and preservation of a contaminated disciplinary narrative. That lawsuit alleged that the Department’s own investigative materials showed that Headley was not a neutral complainant, but a subject officer whose credibility, motive, Department-resource access, computer misuse, and alleged sexual misconduct were central to any fair investigation.

The complaint alleges that on June 2, 2026, Foster served that Bronx County action upon the City of New York and multiple NYPD defendants, including Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch. The next morning, June 3, 2026, while Foster was working in Bronx County, she received a telephone call from an unidentified female civilian from NYPD Medical Division directing her to report “ASAP” for a purported “random” drug test.

The complaint alleges that Foster was not told who ordered, requested, approved, generated, reviewed, or authorized the test. She was not shown reliable documentation establishing that her selection was generated through a neutral, validated, auditable, and non-retaliatory random-selection process. She was not advised of any reasonable-suspicion basis. She was not provided random-selection records, chain-of-custody documentation, laboratory paperwork, testing authority, completed forms, cutoff thresholds, testing data, interpretive materials, or any NYPD/Psychemedics test result.

At approximately 1100 hours on June 3, 2026, Foster reported to NYPD Medical Division at 1 Lefrak City in Queens, where NYPD personnel collected three samples of her head hair. The complaint alleges that Psychemedics Corporation tested, processed, analyzed, interpreted, and/or reported Foster’s June 3, 2026 NYPD hair sample.

Because Foster believed the timing and circumstances were retaliatory, she obtained an independent outside hair test later that same day at The IMA Group, located at 3250 Westchester Avenue, Suite 12, Bronx, New York. That independent five-panel hair test was negative. Foster alleges, upon information and belief, that the NYPD/Psychemedics result was also negative because she was not suspended, modified, charged, or otherwise disciplined based upon the June 3, 2026 test result.

“This case does not depend on a positive drug-test result,” said Eric Sanders, Esq., attorney for Foster. “The injury began when the Department selected, summoned, compelled, processed, and subjected Ms. Foster to an opaque and inadequately validated hair-testing regime one day after service of her Bronx County human-rights action. The Department cannot hide behind the word ‘random’ while refusing to produce the records that would prove the selection was neutral, auditable, and unrelated to protected activity.”

The lawsuit further alleges that the NYPD’s hair-testing regime is not merely a medical procedure. According to the complaint, when the Department uses hair testing to affect employment, duty status, discipline, promotion, credibility, reputation, or continued service, the practice functions as an employment-selection and disciplinary device. The complaint alleges that the regime lacks sufficient transparency, validation, random-selection safeguards, chain-of-custody protections, adverse-impact monitoring, sample-integrity safeguards, and meaningful review.

The complaint challenges the use of hair testing methods including radioimmunoassay of hair (“RIAH”), enzyme immunoassay (“EIA”), and other immunoassay-based hair-testing variants. Foster alleges that the City and Commissioner Tisch failed to ensure that the hair-testing regime used against her satisfied Frye, the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, job-relatedness, business necessity, neutral selection, adverse-impact monitoring, sample-integrity safeguards, chain-of-custody reliability, and meaningful review protections.

The lawsuit also names Psychemedics Corporation, alleging that the company owed Foster a duty of care under New York common law. The complaint relies in part on Landon v. Kroll Laboratory Specialists, Inc., 22 N.Y.3d 1 (2013), where the New York Court of Appeals recognized that a drug-testing laboratory may owe a duty of care to the subject of a drug test where negligent testing or reporting foreseeably causes serious consequences. Foster alleges that Psychemedics knew or should have known that its hair-testing services were used by the NYPD in employment, disciplinary, medical, promotional, and personnel contexts affecting uniformed members of the service.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages where legally available, attorneys’ fees, costs, interest, declaratory relief, and injunctive relief. It also seeks prospective relief enjoining the City of New York, Commissioner Tisch, Psychemedics Corporation, and those acting in concert with them from using RIAH, EIA, enzyme immunoassay testing, radioimmunoassay testing, or any other variant of immunoassay-based hair testing as an employment, disciplinary, medical, promotional, applicant-screening, probationary-employment, or personnel device against NYPD applicants, probationary employees, uniformed members of the service, or civilian employees unless defendants first demonstrate compliance with scientific-reliability, employment-validation, adverse-impact, neutral-selection, sample-integrity, chain-of-custody, and meaningful-review safeguards.

“These hair-testing cases are no longer isolated personnel disputes,” Sanders said. “They raise larger questions about retaliation, scientific reliability, racial vulnerability, employment validation, and whether the NYPD is using opaque testing machinery as a weapon against employees who challenge misconduct.”

The defendants are presumed to deny the allegations. Foster seeks a jury trial on all issues so triable.

About The Sanders Firm, P.C.

The Sanders Firm, P.C. is a New York-based law firm focused on civil rights, immigration, employment discrimination, police misconduct, and other high-stakes matters. Its founder and president, Eric Sanders, Esq., is a retired NYPD officer who brings a rare inside perspective to the intersection of government power, public institutions, enforcement discretion, and constitutional accountability.

For more than twenty years, Sanders has counseled thousands of clients and handled complex matters involving police use of force, sexual harassment, retaliation, systemic discrimination, immigration consequences, and related civil-rights violations. He is widely recognized as a leading New York civil-rights attorney and a prominent voice on evidence-based policing, institutional accountability, equal justice, and rights-based immigration advocacy.

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