A Manhattan federal court judge today ripped the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk practices, saying the city acted with “deliberate indifference” in sanctioning these “unconstitutional” searches by cops.
The NYPD has been systematically targeting minorities and violating their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures and 14th Amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection, according to US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin.
“I find that the City is liable for violating plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights,” Scheindlin wrote. “The City acted with deliberate indifference toward the NYPD’s practice of making unconstitutional stops and conducting unconstitutional frisks.”
The judge intends to install an independent monitor — private lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor Peter Zimroth — to monitor NYPD compliance with her ruling.
Scheindlin said she’s not ending stop-and-frisk, but seeking a major reform to the practice.
“To be very clear: I am not ordering an end to the practice of stop-and-frisk,” she wrote.
“This Opinion does not call for the NYPD to abandon proactive policing and return to an earlier era of less effective police practices. Rather, the relief ordered below requires the NYPD to be even more proactive: proactive not only about crime control and prevention, but also about protecting the constitutional rights of the people the NYPD serves. The public interest will not be harmed by a permanent injunction requiring the NYPD to conform.”
Mayor Bloomberg blasted the ruling and said New Yorkers are safer because of stop and frisk.
“This is a very dangerous decision made by a judge that I think just does not understand how policing works and what is compliant with the US Constitution as determined by the Supreme Court,” the agitated mayor said.
“We believe we have done exactly what the courts allow and what the constitution allows us to do.”
Bloomberg warned that crime rates could skyrocket, if a court-ordered monitor impedes police practices.
“I worry for my kids and I worry for your kiss. I worry for you and I worry for me,” Bloomberg said.
“Crime can come back any time. The criminals think they they’re going to get away with things, [we] just cannot let that happen.”
Vince Warren, executive director of Center for Constitutional Rights, which spearheaded the legal fight, called the ruling a “landmark decision.”
“We are asking the entire city of New York — particularly Mayor Bloomberg — to do the right thing,” Warren said. “The people have spoken and the courts have spoken. “
Scheindlin wrote that too many individual New Yorkers have been unnecessarily searched by officers who have nothing more to go on, but the color of a bystander’s skin.
“In practice, the policy encourages the targeting of young black and Hispanic men based on their prevalence in local crime complaints. This is a form of racial profiling,” Scheindlin wrote.
“While a person’s race may be important if it fits the description of a particular crime suspect, it is impermissible to subject all members of a racially defined group to heightened police enforcement because some members of that group are criminals.”
These stops have amounted to a “basic freedom” being denied to citizens by the NYPD, the judge ruled.
“Far too many people in New York City have been deprived of this basic freedom far too often,” Scheindlin wrote.
“The NYPD’s practice of making stops that lack individualized reasonable suspicion has been so pervasive and persistent as to become not only a part of the NYPD’s standard operating procedure, but a fact of daily life in some New York City neighborhoods.”
The judge also called for the department to experiment with miniature cameras, which would be fitted on officers to record stops.
Cops in the precinct with the highest number of 2012 stops in its borough would wear the cameras for a year, so the court-ordered monitor could have an “objective record” of the interactions, the judge ruled.
Scheindlin’s opinion followed a 10-week-long, class-action lawsuit trial that included testimony from innocent New Yorkers, who had been stopped, frisked and questioned by cops.
There were 4.4 million people stopped by cops in New York between 2004 and mid-2012, and 80 percent of them were black or Hispanic.
The judge found that “in each of these stops, a person’s life was interrupted.”
“Both statistical and anecdotal evidence showed that minorities are indeed treated differently than whites,” Scheindlin wrote.
“For example, once a stop is made, blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be subjected to the use of force than whites, despite the fact that whites are more likely to be found with weapons or contraband.”
City Hall and the NYPD have steadfastly defended stop-and-frisk practices, insisting that New Yorkers have been made safer by the policy.
Mayor Bloomberg went a step further earlier this summer, saying white New Yorkers are the ones who are being unfairly stopped, based on the percentage of crimes they commit.
“I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they say,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show in late June.
The ruling comes one month before the mayoral primary, which features a crowded Democratic field taking shots at the front-runner, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
She’s had to walk a tightrope, calling for oversight and reforms to stop and frisk, while also heaping praise on NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly. Quinn supports a inspector general to oversee NYPD practices.
“The NYPD Inspector General will help review and provide guidance to ensure that stop and frisk is done in a constitutionally sound manner that focuses on the quality of the stops, not the quantity,” she said.
“And as mayor, I intend to work with the federal monitor to help ensure these stops come down dramatically so that we can build stronger relationships between our communities of color and our police force. ”
Still, opponents want Quinn to pay a price for her ties to Kelly, Mayor Bloomberg and other supporters of stop and frisk.
“The courts have just affirmed facts that too many New Yorkers know to be true: Under the Bloomberg Administration, with the acquiescence of Speaker Quinn, millions of innocent New Yorkers — overwhelmingly young men of color — have been illegally stopped,” said mayoral candidate and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.
Bill Thompson, the only black candidate in the race for mayor, also hailed the ruling.
“As I have said, the present stop and frisk policy violates the constitutional rights of all New Yorkers, but especially innocent blacks and Latinos,” he said.
“Instead of treating our police and people with respect, the Mayor and Commissioner Kelly have imposed what are effectively quotas on the police and treated entire minority communities with suspicion.”
In recent weeks, Thompson has spoken much more firmly against the wrongs of stop and frisk — after opponents of the practice questioned his commitment against it.
He had opposed two City Council bills aimed at reining in the misuse of stop and frisk.
City Comptroller John Liu, consistently polling in fifth place and pressing to make 10 percent, has been the field’s most vocal stop-and-frisk opponent.
“The judge’s call for reforms must be heeded, and – longer term – the tactic should be abolished.” Liu said. “It’s time to put an end to stop and frisk once and for all.”
Struggling candidate Anthony Weiner is, no doubt, hoping today’s ruling can shift the conversation away from the sexting scandal that’s virtually torpedoed his campaign.
“This decision sadly confirms what was profoundly obvious,” Weiner said. “When the police stop tens of thousands of citizens who have done nothing wrong – the overwhelming number being young men of color – basic civil rights are being violated.”
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg, Yoav Gonen and David K. Li
Judge rules against NYPD's stop-frisk policy by New York Post