Kliphnote: Almost 90% of the murders are committed are by blacks and Hispanics in NYC. That would mean most of the 'stop-and-frisk' should be blacks and Hispanics, right? Not according to lefty U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin.
N.Y. police's 'stop-and-frisk' tactics violate rights, judge rules
Bernard Vaughan
23 minutes ago
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a stinging rebuke to the Bloomberg administration, a federal judge ruled on Monday that the New York City Police's "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactics violate the constitutional rights of minorities, despite claims by the mayor and police commissioner that it has driven down rates of violent crime.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the police adopted a policy of "indirect racial profiling" by targeting racially defined groups for stops, resulting in the disproportionate, discriminatory stopping of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics, and that the city's highest officials "turned a blind eye" toward this result, she said.
"No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life," Scheindlin wrote in her opinion.
Police personnel felt or were aware of pressure to increase the number of stops when Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002 and brought in Raymond Kelly to be NYPD Commissioner, the judge wrote.
As a result, officers often frisked young minority men for weapons or searched their pockets for contraband before letting them go, in a violation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, the judge said in a 195-page decision.
A 2012 New York Civil Liberties Union report showed a sharp, steady increase in police stops over the course of Bloomberg's three terms in office - to 685,724 in 2011 from 160,851 stops in 2003, with about half of the 2011 stops resulting in physical searches.
Bloomberg and Kelly countered that the practice has driven down violent crime and limited the number of illegal guns being carried on the streets on New York.
Scheindlin's major decision follows an exhaustive nine-week trial that ended in May that pitted the NYPD's interest in keeping New York's crime rate down against black and Latino plaintiffs who felt discriminated against. Scheindlin presided over the trial without a jury.
The NYPD did not immediately comment on the decision.
As part of her ruling, Scheindlin ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee compliance with other remedies she ordered.
The other remedies include the NYPD adopting a written policy specifying circumstances where stops are authorized; adopt a trial program requiring the use of body-worn cameras in one precinct in each of the city's five boroughs; and to set up a community-based remedial process under a court-appointed facilitator.
(This story was refiled to fix typo in headline)
(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan, Chris Francescani, Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Philip Barbara)
Blacks, Latinos lead crime stats - NYPD
By Alison Gendar / DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, September 18, 2008, 9:51 PM
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Black New Yorkers are 13 times more likely to be murdered - or arrested for murder - than whites, an NYPD crime analysis shows.
Blacks and Hispanics dominated tallies of both suspects and victims, according to an NYPD racial breakdown of crimes requested by the Daily News.
The News asked for the stats after civil rights groups slammed the NYPD because 90% of people shot at by cops in 2007 - the last year for which data was available - were black or Hispanic. Police brass said that was because minorities accounted for the majority of crime suspects and victims.
Of the 244 murders between Jan. 1 and June 30 this year, 64.8% of the victims were black, records showed. Hispanics accounted for 23.4% of the victims, whites 7.4% and Asians 4.5%.
Using NYPD stats, the homicide rate per 1 million in population was 81.1 for blacks and 6.3 for whites.
Among murder arrests, blacks accounted for 64.9%, Hispanics 27.2%, whites 7.3% and Asians less than 1%.
In all, 153 New Yorkers were charged with homicide through June 30 - the ethnicity was detailed in 151 of the cases.
The arrest rate for homicide per 1 million population: 50.8 black, 3.8 white.
The statistics did not match crime victims with their tormentors. Anecdotally, police officers said black and Hispanic victims tend to be attacked by black and Hispanic criminals.
The racial tallies bear little resemblance to the ethnic makeup of New York City: 34.8% white, 27.6% Hispanic and 23.7% black, 2006 Census data shows.
Blacks and Hispanics dominated tallies of both suspects and victims, according to an NYPD racial breakdown of crimes requested by the Daily News.
The News asked for the stats after civil rights groups slammed the NYPD because 90% of people shot at by cops in 2007 - the last year for which data was available - were black or Hispanic. Police brass said that was because minorities accounted for the majority of crime suspects and victims.
Of the 244 murders between Jan. 1 and June 30 this year, 64.8% of the victims were black, records showed. Hispanics accounted for 23.4% of the victims, whites 7.4% and Asians 4.5%.
Using NYPD stats, the homicide rate per 1 million in population was 81.1 for blacks and 6.3 for whites.
Among murder arrests, blacks accounted for 64.9%, Hispanics 27.2%, whites 7.3% and Asians less than 1%.
In all, 153 New Yorkers were charged with homicide through June 30 - the ethnicity was detailed in 151 of the cases.
The arrest rate for homicide per 1 million population: 50.8 black, 3.8 white.
The statistics did not match crime victims with their tormentors. Anecdotally, police officers said black and Hispanic victims tend to be attacked by black and Hispanic criminals.
The racial tallies bear little resemblance to the ethnic makeup of New York City: 34.8% white, 27.6% Hispanic and 23.7% black, 2006 Census data shows.
Shira Scheindlin
Billionaires
can get away with a lot because they’re billionaires and can get pretty
much whatever they want at any given moment. Except childhood sleds.Couple billions of dollars with running an eight million person personal fiefdom, and it’s not surprising that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has developed an unhealthy disrespect for any other authority.
Unfortunately for him, there are higher authorities in this world, and Bloomberg may have finally done enough to get the public spanking he’s been courting.
Friday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg walked once again into the thresher maw that is the legal quagmire of his “stop and frisk” program by declaring that the program, criticized as racial profiling writ large, “stops too many whites.”
Well, Bloomberg is probably right. The program does stop too many whites…
Continue reading “Mike Bloomberg Is Right, NYPD Does Stop and Frisk Too Many Whites”
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