[ Racial disparities even starker than at the height of former
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” era.]
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THE NYPD HAS STOPPED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE UNDER MAYOR ADAMS.
JUST 5% WERE WHITE.  
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Bahar Ostadan
August 25, 2023
Gothamist
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_ Racial disparities even starker than at the height of former Mayor
Michael Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” era. _

Police, in 2012, stopping and frisking young people in the Bronx. ,
Photo: Pearl Gabel for The Wall Street Journal

 

The NYPD has stopped tens of thousands of pedestrians since Mayor Eric
Adams took office – claiming someone “fit a relevant
description” or citing a vague reason like “other.” Just 5% of
them were white, revealing racial disparities even starker than at the
height of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” era.

These takeaways are according to new data the New York Civil Liberties
Union shared with Gothamist. They come as the city re-examines the
difficult legacy of stop and frisk a decade after a federal judge
ruled that its application by Bloomberg's police department was
unconstitutional. The rate of the stops dropped dramatically in
Bloomberg's last year and even further under former Mayor Bill de
Blasio, who campaigned on the issue.

But Adams, a former cop who ran on a message of public safety, said
during his 2021 campaign that stop and frisk could be a useful
policing tool if applied properly.

Cops are stopping dramatically fewer people than they did in the
Bloomberg years. Just 1% of people stopped during stop and frisk's
height in 2011 are detained now, after the 2013 federal court ruling
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found the practice discriminated against New Yorkers of color. But
police stops under Adams, which are at their highest point since 2015,
are trending upward.

An NYPD spokesperson said the department does not direct officers to
make a certain number of stops, but that police make stops "with
increasing levels of precision" based on officers' observations. The
anonymous spokesperson also said the police's authority to stop,
question and possibly frisk an individual was "firmly established" by
the U.S. Supreme Court Case Terry vs. Ohio
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than 50 years ago.

The spokesperson went on to say the department has multiple layers of
oversight and training, including audits, data analysis and the review
of body camera footage it uses to investigate stops and takes
corrective action where warranted.

The statement adds that the department carries out all of its work
"without consideration of race or ethnicity."

Police officers reported stopping 8,502 pedestrians in the first half
of 2023 – a dramatic drop from the stop and frisk heights of 2011
when police made nearly 700,000 pedestrian stops.

But as Gothamist previously reported
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those peak numbers rival the amount of stops the police made with
drivers last year, roughly 670,000. About 90% of the drivers searched
or arrested were Black or Latino.

“The good news is there are definitely fewer [stops] happening, but
the alarming thing is that the racial disparities and the apparent
racial profiling continues,” said Chris Dunn, the NYCLU's legal
director. “Many more Black and Latino people are being stopped
without any justification whatsoever.”

Cops in five different commands told the Daily News
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June they were being pushed to issue low level summonses, escalating
neighborhood tensions with police. A federal monitor found that 24% of
stops made by the NYPD Neighborhood Safety Teams
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year were unconstitutional.

Patrick Hendry, president of the city’s rank-and-file police union,
said City Hall and NYPD leadership are sending mixed messages –
demanding more “enforcement activity” without formally changing
the laws put in place to discourage stop-and-frisk tactics.

“We’re concerned that we are going to see even more rank-and-file
police officers punished for carrying out policies and strategies we
didn’t create,” Hendry wrote this week in an emailed statement to
Gothamist.

NYPD officers are mandated to report every stop they make by filling
out a form. The preset reasons range from noting that someone was
“carrying a suspicious object” or doing something “indicative of
a drug transaction.”

But police said they made nearly every stop this year – 92% –
because someone either “fit a relevant description” or for a
reason they labeled as “other.”

Of the 7,000 Black and Latino pedestrians the NYPD reported stopping
this year, roughly 72% were deemed “innocent.” Meanwhile, police
arrested nearly 40% of white New Yorkers they stopped.

Black and Latino people are “much less likely to get arrested
because the stops are bogus from the get-go,” Dunn said. “For
white people, their race is playing much less of a role and their
actual suspicious behavior is playing a real role – and that
produces a higher arrest rate.”

Dunn estimated that police are making two to three times as many stops
as they say under Adams’ public safety strategy, but don’t
document unwarranted stops that don’t result in a summons or arrest.
NYPD precincts in the Bronx, Harlem, central and east Brooklyn and
Midtown had the highest stop rates so far this year.

“There is nothing that indicates that increasing stops decreases
crimes,” Dunn said. “To the contrary.”

_Bahar Ostadan covers the NYPD and public safety. Got a tip? Email
[email protected] or message Bahar on Signal at
646-740-7335._

* Police
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* Arbitrary stops
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* New York City
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* racial disparities
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