Remember Amadou Diallo? Race and policing in New York City!

Recently, the New York City Police Department released statistics for a single year pertaining to its controversial stop and frisk policies.

According to an article on officer.com, more than 31,000 people were stopped in 2011 and 97% of them were black or Hispanic!

People of color had long complained about this practice, and a judge found the policy to be unconstitutional.

New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly said he was disturbed that the judge found Big Apple police engaged in racial profiling, saying that is "recklessly untrue."

"We do not engage in racial profiling," Kelly said. "It is prohibited by law, it is prohibited by our own regulations."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city will appeal the ruling by a federal judge. Incredibly, in spite of the evidence--which shows that police rarely find weapons or drugs or make an arrest in cases where they stop and frisk someone--Bloomberg said the policy is "an important part of [the NYPD's] record of success." See the reality here.

I've been following this story since way way back in the day.

In New York City, police have always used race as a warning sign of potential danger to profile people. Not all cops of course, but enough to create major disparities in stops and even use of force.

Remember the case of Amadou Diallo, followed then shot and killed because he (an innocent man with nothing but a wallet in his back pocket) fit the description of a suspect (why? because he was black?)? There have been far too many of these cases in the city.

Many people have forgotten. Some have not.

Like my man, Ziggy Marley. Check out his song, "I know you don't care about me." Nice use of music to make a point.

"I know you don't care about me. I'm just a nigga' walking down the street."

...

"And they say their Constitution's for the benefit of all. It's all a lie. It's all a lie."

And read Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow. Her argument? Criminal justice--especially mass incarceration--is the new Jim Crow. Woah!

BIG NEWS in criminal justice policy

Every once in a while, there is a day like this:

Holder calls for scaled-back mandatory minimum sentences

Draconian. Excessive. Counterproductive.

These are the words from the top law enforcement official in the United States about one facet of the drug war.

The Justice Department will no longer pursue mandatory minimum sentences for "certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders," Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday.

Holder told the American Bar Association's House of Delegates in San Francisco that the United States should not stop being tough on crime, but he noted that while the nation is "coldly efficient" in jailing criminals, it "cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate" its way to becoming safer.

 

 

 

And New York's stop-and-frisk policy unconstitutional, judge rules.

 

Racially biased. Unreasonable. Unconstitutional.

 

That is how a federal judge characterized New York City PD's stop and frisk policy.

 

A federal judge ruled Monday that the New York Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy violates the Constitution, in part by unlawfully targeting blacks and Latinos.

Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, ruling on a class-action lawsuit, wrote that the policy violated plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights barring unreasonable searches, finding that police made at least 200,000

stops from 2004 to June 2012 without reasonable suspicion.

 

She also found evidence of racial profiling, violating plaintiffs' 14th Amendment rights guaranteeing equal protection.

 

So today is an amazing day in criminal justice policy news.

 

 

 

When can police stop and frisk you?

For years they've been doing it, even with increasing frequency.

But only in some places. And against some people.

Which is why many have alleged it is being used to engage in racial profiling.

For example, the New York City Civil Liberties Union claims that, from 2002 to 2011, black and Latino residents made up close to 90 percent of people stopped, and about 88 percent of stops – more than 3.8 million – were of innocent New Yorkers. Even in neighborhoods that are predominantly white, black and Latino New Yorkers face the disproportionate brunt. For example, in 2011, Black and Latino New Yorkers made up 24 percent of the population in Park Slope, but 79 percent of stops. This, on its face, is discriminatory.

So I don't find it surprising that a key part of the NYPD’s controversial “stop and frisk” tactic has been ruled unconstitutional. From NY Daily News:

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Shira Scheindlin ordered police to refrain from making trespass stops outside private residential buildings — even though the landlord has given officers permission to do so as part of the NYPD’s “Clean Halls” program.

"While it may be difficult to say when precisely to draw the line between constitutional and unconstitutional police encounters such a line exists, and the NYPD has systematically crossed it when making trespass stops outside buildings," Scheindlin wrote in a 157-page ruling.

The New York Civil Liberties Union argued in an eight-day hearing in October that “Clean Halls,” which exists only in the Bronx, leads to people being hassled by cops and sometimes cuffed near their own abode for no legitimate reason.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-controversial-stop-frisk-policy-ruled-unconstitutional-article-1.1235578#ixzz2HPV2AwdC