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Michael Bloomberg and NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly
Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly. Both have recently been criticized for their handling of the stop-and-frisk issue. Photograph: Henny Ray Abrams/AP
Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly. Both have recently been criticized for their handling of the stop-and-frisk issue. Photograph: Henny Ray Abrams/AP

NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy to be reviewed by US department of justice

This article is more than 11 years old
The justice department has confirmed that it is reviewing the policy after meetings with activists and New York City lawmakers

The department of justice is reviewing the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, following demands by campaigners who say the tactic is unconstitutional and racially discriminatory.

The DoJ's intervention, confirmed to the Guardian, follows a meeting with New York City lawmakers in Washington on Thursday.

If justice department officials decided to launch a federal investigation or to intervene in lawsuits that are already under way, it would deal a significant blow to a policy that has been championed by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police chief Ray Kelly.

Last year the police department stopped close to 700,000 people on the city's streets, more than ever before. As with every year over the past decade, the vast majority of those stopped were African American or Latino and nearly nine out of 10 had committed no crime. The department is on track to make 2012 another record-setting year.

Campaigners say Bloomberg and Kelly have failed to respond to demands for change and that federal intervention is now needed.
"It's clear that the mayor and commissioner – in the face of everything that points to this policy being unjust, unfair, racist, prejudiced and most importantly ineffective – won't do anything about it," said city council member Jumaane Williams, a fierce critic of the department's policies who attended Thursday's meetings at the capitol. "Their lack of leadership is forcing us to do other things."

In an email to the Guardian a department of justice official said: "The department is aware of the allegations, and we are currently reviewing them."

Under President Obama, the department of justice has aggressively investigated a number of big city police departments for allegations ranging from systematic civil rights abuses such as harassment of racial minorities, false arrests to excessive use of force . Under so-called "pattern and practice" investigations – which grant the department authority to sue police departments if there is a pattern of violations of citizens' constitutional rights – the department has looked into allegations of misconduct in Newark, New Jersey and Seattle, Washington.

In May last year the DOJ issued a report on the New Orleans police department, accusing its officers of frequently using excessive force, conducting illegal stops and arrests, as well as systemic discrimination on the basis of race gender and sexual orientation.

NYPD stop frisk
Protesters take part in a rally against the NYPD's stop and frisk policy in the Bronx borough of New York May 13, 2012. Photograph: Keith Bedford/Reuters

Pressure on the NYPD over stop-and-frisk is increasing. A federal judge last month granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

On Tuesday the local news website DNAinfo revealed that the explosion in stop-and-frisks under Bloomberg's administration – by 600% in the last decade – has had little impact on the number of people of shot in New York City, in contrast to claims made by the mayor and the commissioner that the practice is making the city safer. NYPD statistics reveal that 1,821 people were victims of gunfire in 2011, a figure which is almost identical to the 1,892 people who were shot in 2002 when Bloomberg came into office.

When confronted Tuesday with the fact that high rates of stop-and-frisk have not reduced shootings, Bloomberg said: "I know that."

Speaking before Thursday's meeting with DoJ officials, Williams said he believed the city's justification for widespread police stops is falling apart. "It's slowly crumbling around them. There's nothing they can say," he said. "If you stop more black young men than actually exist in the city and shootings are not even going down, I don't even know what you're holding on to."

Williams's spokesman, Stefan Ringel, said later that the lawmakers' conversation with DoJ officials were "very positive". He said: "The justice department officials that were at the meeting were very receptive to our concerns," he said. "We definitely feel that there is potential for some space for collaboration."

Ringel said the DoJ expressed interest in undertaking a closer examination of the class-action lawsuit. "There are going to be conversations ongoing in the next days and weeks. I feel certainly more confident even than I did when we headed down this morning that the department of justice will have some role to play before this is all said and done."

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union which has been an outspoken critic of the department's stop-and-frisk practices, believes sweeping changes in NYPD culture are needed. "What we're hearing from the NYPD thus far is that they have a public relations problem. Well, they have more than that. This requires a massive overhaul of NYPD culture emanating from the top."

Lieberman pointed to the department's use of "quotas" as a crucial factor in driving the high number of stops. The NYPD has denied using a quota system, though multiple officers have reported that the system does exist and results in undue pressure placed upon rank-and-file police to make stops.

George Gresham, president of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a service-workers union, which is helping to organize a march against the policy on June 17, Fathers' Day, said: "We still have quite a way to go before stop-and-frisk goes from 700,000 to whatever a number that makes sense is.

"But there's no question that this, I believe, is the moment where public awareness and therefore public official awareness is keenly focused on the fact that this is a failing policy."

'It's martial law on a community'

The campaign against the NYPD's use of stop-and-frisk is supported by those who have experienced it. Steve Kohut, born and raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side, says he's been stopped and frisked "more times than I can remember" since he was 12. "It was just life to me," Kohut said.

He only realized that it was not common to all areas of the city when he visited a friend's upscale neighborhood. It prompted him to question the practice. "Wait a minute, the cops don't stop you every time you go to the store over here? They don't do that to you? They don't search you? They don't push you up against a wall? They don't put your face on the hood of their car?"

The inconsistency prompted Kohut to join a group that monitors police activity in New York City neighborhoods like the one he grew up in. "It messes with my head," he said, adding that it is "heartbreaking to know that there are kids growing up right now that think this is just life."

He hopes the growing attention being paid to stop-and-frisk will lead to a change in the policy. "I think it's great," he said. "It's not a positive thing to just declare martial law on a colored community or a poor community, which is pretty much what they're doing."

More on this story

More on this story

  • Stop-and-frisk opponents fired up by judge's ruling against NYPD tactic

  • Federal judge orders NYPD to stop using stop-and-frisk tactic in the Bronx

  • NYPD's use of stop-and-frisks suffers marked drop

  • Stop-and-frisk app designed to track controversial NYPD policy

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