NYCLU to Announce Lawsuit Today Over NYPD Racial Profiling

The New York Civil Liberties Union will announce a lawsuit at 1 p.m. today on behalf of someone who was the subject of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program. The lawsuit challenges the racially-biased practice as well as the legality of a database the NYPD maintains with the names and addresses of every person stopped and frisked by the police, even though more than 90 percent of those people have done nothing wrong.

According to data released earlier this week, New York City police officers stopped more people on the streets during the first three months of 2008 than during any quarter in the six years the Department has reported the data.

In 2007, the NYPD stopped about 469,000 New Yorkers – almost 1,300 people every day. Though they make up only a quarter of the City’s population, more than half of those stopped were black. Another 30 percent were Latino. Though whites make up more than 35 percent of New York City’s population, they were only 11 percent of those stopped. In 2006 and 2007, blacks and Latinos were the target of about 90 percent of the nearly one million stop-and-frisk encounters.

WHAT:
News conference to announce a lawsuit action against New York City and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly

WHERE:
NYCLU Offices, 125 Broad Street, 19th Fl., New York, NY

WHEN:
Today, May 7, 1 p.m.

WHO:
Donna Lieberman, executive director of New York Civil Liberties Union
Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union
Leonardo Blair, New York Post reporter and the subject of an NYPD stop-and-frisk encounter