NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Policy Comes Under Fire

So The Nation, a weekly magazine pub. Released a hidden recording of the NYPD stop-and-frisk encounter:



Since then Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPC have come under fire by the city council- and are defending the stop-and-frisk policy. NYC Stop-And-Frisk Controversy Gains Political Spotlight


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I personally think this is ridiculous. I would think the mayor and the NYPD would have taken a lesson from the LAPD, after Rodney King- that this conduct is just not tolerated...

They need batman

This just reinforces my belief that a lot of the people who end up in law enforcement have no business being in law enforcement.

The whole thing is shameful.

To stop and search someone based solely on the officer's whim is a violation of a civilian's rights.
How did this ever get passed? I would fight this tooth and nail if they tried it in my area.

Terry v Ohio, specifically

I'm honestly not really shocked... It's guilty until proven innocent after all...

Regardless if it gets classified as Terry Stops. I'm just more shocked that a liberal like Bloomberg would support this behavior, even after that tape was released.

When 88% of Terry Stops, aren't resulting in arrests or tickets. That's a red flag for the city to do something. They need to do something like Los Angeles, post the Rodney King riots. We created an internal investigation division. It's been pretty effective- sure you hear about the occasional police brutalities etc. Same division was the one who conducted that review of Los Angeles Sherriffs and jail deputy brutality and released it to the media.

I would be more than willing to stop and let a cop frisk me on the street, and not just because of my issues with loneliness and need for human contact. The main reason I would have no problem with it is because I know I don't carry weapons or drugs on me. I wouldn't need to think fast about what day of the week it is to figure out what I had in my pockets and if I would make a fuss about it or not, but that is a problem some people have.

From said article:
Say an officer witnesses a hand-off that could be drug deal. The officer is allowed to frisk the suspect, even if that alone is not enough to warrant an arrest.

This is almost as entertaining as watching a cop turn his siren on to run a red light and turn it off two blocks later.

I do not carry weapons or drugs, but I would take issue with an officer stopping me at random for a frisk. It's not a matter of me having something to hide, it's a matter of me bring a free person.

I would feel better if I knew exactly what "specific and articulable fasts" were. Policemen need to take their own safety into account, but "looking suspicious" is not a reason to target a person. What is "suspicious," anyways?

Being brown, apparently.

I take issue with the waste of time it is. Also, the embarrassment. But mostly the waste of time.

I take issue with the notion that it's ok to harass and abuse people who haven't done anything wrong.

As a brown person, I don't get randomly stopped and frisked. Then again during the work day I'm wearing business attire, and at night I'm usually wearing a collared shirt and jeans. Not saying the way a person dresses dictates their behavior, but sadly some people assume that is the case. I'm sure if I walked around in a ball cap, a wife beater muscle shirt, and camo pants; I'd be targeted as well.

So Pleebo is only half correct.

As a brown person, I just can't get my pants to sag below my *** just right.

You have that problem too? I also have issues with wearing white wife beaters and obscure tatoos on my chest.

I think I'm the only light brown person that doesn't look good in a white wife beater.

ftfy

Keep stopping and frisking while the drug related murders / homicides continue in the same predictable neighborhoods.

While probable cause or reasonable suspicion is a bit like a holding call in football, they can call it any time they really like, this ***generally isn't legal. Whole video is relevant, but the specifics of stop-and-frisk start about 18:00 in.

Okay before I really go any further, look at it in this light.

Imagine you have to deal with the dreck of the universe on a daily basis. You have to put up with people talking ***to your face, yelling at you, belittling you for doing your job all day. You have to show up to the house at 2 AM for a domestic disturbance at the same house for 10th time because the guy never ends up in jail.

Even over a short course of a couple of years, can you start to see how easy it becomes to be a little jaded and how the "Us vs Them" mentality gets started?

If you don't have any experience working in lower income areas (this video is targeted at NYPD out in the ghetto), or anyone who has worked law enforcement and or EMS in these types of areas... then get off your high horse. You're trying to help people and you get zero respect, you start to hate yourself real fast because you're always made out to be the bad guy on the news.

And it really isn't shocking that they have quotas in a major metropolitan area for this kind of stuff. I'm sure you all know they have quotas for speeding tickets and stuff. Just because you don't see someone doing ***all the time, doesn't mean it isn't happening all the time. Because none of you ever go five miles over the limit.

I don't support the stop and frisk procedures, but I can kind of see how they got put into place to begin with. They are dealing with very high crime rates and they just want them down is where it all began.

boofuckinghoo it's their job, nobody said it would be easy or that it deserves respect...(ok I'm sure people said the last bit, but it doesn't make it true).

want crime rates down? stop busting people for victimless crimes. take the victimless crime laws off the books.

Most of those crimes are there for public safety. You could argue transporting drugs in your trunk doesn't hurt anybody either.

As my philosophy professor so eloquently said.

"The job of law enforcement is to enforce pre-existing laws- not interpret laws. Interpretation of law is strictly reserved for judges."

I'm sorry but that's just their job. If they can't handle the 2am calls etc then they shouldn't be in that line of work.

This is EXACTLY what the Los Angeles PD was doing for years. It wasn't until the videotaped police brutality of Rodney King that the LAPD was finally scrutinized for its profiling/stop-and-frisk procedures. EDIT: It wasn't until after the Rodney King trial that the LAPD was scrutinized.

So we allow law enforcement agencies to continue with racial profiling in a city where the agency has been clearly documented of racism in its profiling (e.g. Mutt in this case). Or do we just turn the cheek until Rodney King v2.0 happens?

Because the LAPD was aquitted of police brutality of Rodney King...just like the NYPD will be too. That resulted in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots with marines and the national guard having to intervene...

I doubt in 2012 it would escalate to that extreme. But still NYPD doesn't have it any better/worse than LAPD I would argue. They are both major metro cities and have their "ghettos" to cover.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

people like you are why we are getting to where we are in this country (letting the government run roughshod over our rights). where does it talk about quotas in the 4th amendment? your "spidey sense" as a cop doesn't entitle you to search someone.

I'll mind my business and the cops can mind theirs. if I'm not committing a crime leave me the hell alone.

btw, no i don't carry around/do/sell drugs or anything like that i just would prefer my rights didn't get stepped on.

Stop and frisk isn't about interpreting anything. It is about trying to stop potential crimes in areas of high crime. It was passed by a judge, a court and the state, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

You have to admit the kid did it wrong, but so did the cops. If you get stopped don't mouth off... that was like lesson 1 on that video above, and you can always ask Why? If they should be able to come up with a good reason or you can ask for dismissal.

Whats your take on Rodney King? The LAPD and the courts found the LAPD officers innocent of misconduct- despite the video footage.

So just because it fits into stop-and-frisk its ok?

public safety my ***, and it doesn't, it really doesn't.


still unconstitutional, regardless of whatever *** ruling.

That "kid" did nothing wrong, he has the right to "mouth off"

It's a never ending circle.

The cops don't respect the people because they either look down upon them or have become hopelessly jaded from the plight of the ghetto and those at the top apply very little pressure towards solving the problems of the 'hood. It's something best ignored. Let the peons kill themselves because they're beyond hope.

The people who haven't been corrupted by the mentality that cops are pigs lose respect for the police because of their apathetic sentiments regarding crime, harassing policies like 'stop 'n frisk' and the sentiment that they're being left to die on the mean streets. You can't expect people to side with the cops when criminals are at their throats and the police aren't there to protect them when someone decides to turn a basketball game into a bloodbath. Self preservation leads many to '*** the police' sentiments because the cops aren't around.

You can travel to 42nd street Grand Central and see cops with military grade weaponry guarding against foreign inspired terrorism but here at home in the poorest neighborhoods where commoners fight against the grit of drugs, poverty and gangs all you see are cops coming in to either harass or to clean up another murder, shootout or domestic disturbance.

Where is the concerted effort to clean up the worst neighborhoods in NYC? The cops know where the crime is going on, they know where the criminals are and that is where the police should be deployed. Instead of stopping and frisking, how about more nightly patrols and a greater show of force?

Harlem used to be a festering cesspool of crime, drugs and gangs but in recent years as the neighborhood has been gentrified as higher income individuals poured in the NYPD has turned the neighborhood from something Americans heard about in horror stories to a place where old people can jog at 4am without being shot to ribbons.