The lawyers suing the New York Police Department over its stop-and-frisk policy said the federal case’s March 18 court date will kick off the “trial of the century” over what they allege is a racially discriminatory policy.
Noting that blacks and Latinos were 87 percent of those stopped in 2011 and 2012, though they made up only 53 percent of the city’s population, Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, rolled out the legal strategy on Wednesday. His group brought the lawsuit on behalf of anyone who has been illegally stopped by police in New York in violation of the Fourth and 14th Amendments.
“They would rather fight a lawsuit than switch to a constitutional form of policing,” Warren said of the NYPD. “They would rather make this the trial of the century than be part of the solution of the century. So we are putting the NYPD on trial.”
The Police Department has steadfastly defended its stop-and-frisk policy as an essential crime-fighting tool that helps curb gun violence. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said during a New York City Council hearing on Tuesday that stop-and-frisk is “part of the normal function of police officers.”
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{Matzav.com Newscenter}
I live in Far Rockaway and have passed blacks being frisked on or near my block about 3 times!! It’s so humiliating the way they do it, you try to walk by without looking . It’s mean and unfair.
Once upon a time, you had to have a very good reason for putting someone through that,and even then it was addressed privately. Nowadays, even the airport procedures have you telling the kids to please turn around, as a Muslim (!!) makes sure you are not dangerous…. It’s an Olam Hafuch!
Let me state that I am an opponent of the Stop-and-Frisk policy due to a basic human right of being free of unreasonable searches, as is in the 4th amendment of the U.S. constitution. I agree that sometimes a person might be suspected and stopped without a probable cause, sometimes frisked due to the stopping policeman’s immediate safety concern – notice the whole “immediate safety concern to the stopping policeman” here. Stopping people just to justify frisk searches is blatant violation of human rights and the constitution.
Having said all that, what difference does it make that blacks and Hispanics are only 53% of the population but are 87% of those stopped – they happen to commit 95% of street crime, so it makes sense that people that match description of alleged perpetrators will have a much higher chance of being questioned. How sad, that instead of arguing this case on the 4th amendment basis, feeble-minded race-quotas game is being played.