NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s reliance on the tactic known as “stop and frisk” as part of a new initiative to combat gun violence is harming communities of color and running afoul of the law, a court-appointed federal monitor reported Monday.
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Monitor Mylan Denerstein said the NYPD ‘s Neighborhood Safety Teams — special units deployed in the past 14 months to seize guns in high-crime areas — were engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by stopping and frisking too many people without justification.
In one police precinct, Denerstein said, only 41 percent of stops, 32 percent of frisks and 26 percent of searches were lawful.
The Neighborhood Safety Teams, a replacement for the anti-crime units that the NYPD disbanded in 2021, operate in 34 areas that account for 80% of the city’s violent crime — largely communities of color. Of the people the teams have stopped, Denerstein said, 97% are Black or Hispanic.
A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said city officials “have serious concerns” with Denerstein’s methodology and that they only learned of her findings after news outlets reported on them.
The spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said shootings have fallen since the Neighborhood Safety Teams were created.
Officers assigned to the units “have enhanced training and oversight to ensure we are not only keeping New Yorkers safe, but protecting their civil liberties as well,” Levy said, adding that “any unconstitutional stop is unacceptable, and we will strive to do better for New Yorkers every day.”
Denerstein said she began her review after Adams announced in March 2022 that the NYPD was deploying Neighborhood Safety Teams in some precincts to combat gun violence. Team members, wearing modified uniforms and driving unmarked cars, conduct stops, frisks and searches in their assigned neighborhoods.
“Unfortunately, the results are disappointing,” Denerstein wrote.
Despite their training and experience, officers assigned to Neighborhood Safety Teams “overall appear to be stopping, frisking, and searching individuals at an unsatisfactory level of compliance. Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully.”
In 2013, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated the civil rights of Black and Hispanic New Yorkers with stop and frisk, which was part of an effort to get guns and drugs off the street by frequently stopping and searching people on the street.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled the stops were a form of indirect racial profiling. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, once a champion of the tactic, has since apologized for its use.
Since the ruling, the department claimed a sharp drop in stops, reporting an average of around 11,730 per year from 2016 to 2022, compared with a high of nearly 686,000 stops in 2011.
Black and Hispanic people continue to be the targets of the vast majority of stops, accounting for 89% of all stops in 2022, according to NYPD data compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union.
This article is total idiocy. Nowhere in the discussion is anything said about what exactly is illegal. Their targets are 34 high crime areas. All those areas are more than 90% black/Hispanic (some weird unexplainable coincidence, no doubt). So how can they stop and frisk anything other than a super majority of blacks/Hispanics and still do their jobs? Labeling it “racial profiling” is a disingenuous way of defeating the entire program, but of course that’s the goal…
The 66 pct in BP, the 90th pct in Willi and the 71 pct in CH, have collectively RARELY if ever had any frum JEWS arrested for gun related crimes or even illegal gun possession. They know perfectly well where the neighborhoods where the guns are, the record speaks for itself !!!
If it makes things fair, I’m willing to be frisked as well. Stop and frisk is effective. If it’s discriminatory, then frisk more people and include whites, etc.
Based on the spike in shootings, it seems not enough are stopped.
The truth….not enough are stopped and frisked.
Too many criminals are being let out
This is an absolute joke
Increase stop and frisk help keep crime down. As for this monitor. Just wonder were he lives
The truth has to be told as Jesse Jackson said:
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then I look around and see someone white and feel relieved”.
Having said, to all you Frum friends in here who are though on crime etc etc, remember that the Police doesn’t really like us Yidden and they can and will stop and frisk Frum Yidden as well.