Mayor Adams’s Attempt to Bar Immigrants from Traveling to NYC Ruled Unconstitutional
Civil Liberties Union
The New York Civil Liberties Union today released an analysis of new NYPD data that provides a detailed picture of the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program, including new insights on the program’s stark racial disparities and its ineffectiveness in recovering illegal firearms.
“The NYPD’s own data undermine many of the Bloomberg administration’s justifications for the stop-and-frisk program,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “Contrary to the mayor and police commissioner’s assertions, the massive spike in the number of stops has done little to remove firearms from the streets. Instead, it has violated the constitutional rights of millions of people and corroded the ability of communities of color to trust and respect the police.”
The NYCLU analyzed the NYPD’s full 2011 computerized stop-and-frisk database, which contains detailed information not included in the quarterly stop-and-frisk reports the NYPD provides the City Council. The analysis examines multiple aspects of the 2011 stop-and-frisk data, including stops, frisks, use of force, reason for stop and recovery of weapons. The analysis provides detailed information at a precinct level and a close examination of race-related aspects of stop-and-frisk.
Last year, the NYPD stopped and interrogated people 685,724 times, a more than 600 percent increase in street stops since Mayor Bloomberg’s first year in office when there were only 97,296 stops. Nine out of 10 of people stopped were innocent, meaning they were neither arrested nor ticketed. About 87 percent were black or Latino.
NYCLU’s analysis reveals that:
“Our analysis demonstrates the alarming extent to which the NYPD is targeting innocent black and brown New Yorkers,” NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn said. “In nearly every police precinct – black and white, high crime and low crime – black and Latino New Yorkers are stopped and frisked at a far greater rate than whites. Everyone wants to feel safe in their neighborhoods, but the abuse of stop-and-frisk is making communities of color across New York City fear the force that is supposed to protect them.”
In response to discriminatory policing practices like the abuse of stop-and-frisk, the NYCLU and our allies in Communities United for Police Reform are working to pass the Community Safety Act, a series of City Council bills that would strengthen the definition of discrimination, ensure that New Yorkers understand their right to not consent to searches where no probable cause or warrant exists, and require that NYPD officers identify themselves when conducting stop-and-frisks or engaging in other police activities. In the coming weeks a bill will be introduced creating an NYPD Inspector General’s office.
The NYCLU is also helping to organize a Father’s Day march with 1199 SEIU, the NAACP, the National Action Network and dozens of other labor, civil rights and community organizations to demand an end to the NYPD’s abuse of stop-and-frisk.
“The findings of the NYCLU are incredibly disturbing yet not surprising at all,” said George Gresham, president of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. “The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy has led to rampant racial profiling with tragic consequences over the years. For the safety of all our children, we must speak out against this continued injustice. This is an issue for all people of color and all people of conscience.”
The NYCLU sued the NYPD in 2007 for access to the Police Department’s electronic stop-and-frisk database. In 2008, a State Supreme Court judge ordered the NYPD to turn over the database. Prior to that, the NYPD kept secret detailed information of its stop-and-frisk program.