IS STOP AND FRISK BAD?

How do large Police Departments in major Cities deal with crime yet main­tain and build trust with the cit­i­zens they pro­tect? In New York City this debate is rag­ing against the back­drop of a Federal Judge’s rul­ing that the Police Department’s stop and frisk Policy is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

Federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled on the prac­tice Aug. 12, deem­ing the pol­i­cy a vio­la­tion of the U.S. Constitution.“This case is about the ten­sion between lib­er­ty and pub­lic safe­ty in the use of a proac­tive polic­ing tool called “stop and frisk,’” she wrote in her deci­sion. “The New York City Police Department (NYPD) made 4.4 mil­lion stops between January 2004 and June 2012. Over 80% of these 4.4 mil­lion stops were of blacks or Hispanics.” Scheindlin not­ed that each stop result­ed in an inter­rup­tion of the person’s life with deten­tion and ques­tion­ing tak­ing place on pub­lic streets. “More than half of the time the police sub­ject­ed the per­son to a frisk.”The case was brought by four men, Lalit Clarkson, Deon Dennis, David Floyd, and David Ourlicht, who all claimed they were stopped, ques­tioned, and in some cas­es frisked with no rea­son­able cause.

The oppos­ing sides on this issue are not talk­ing to each oth­er. The Mayor has appealed the Judge’s deci­sion, which guar­an­tees this issue is not going away any time soon. Civil Rights groups like the NAACP , the National Action Network, and the New York Civil Liberties Union have long main­tained that this pol­i­cy is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and racist​.New York City’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly argues that it is an inte­gral tool which his Department uses to keep the city safe.

Ray Kelly has long been crit­i­cized for cre­at­ing a cli­mate in New York which allows Police Officers to abuse young Black and Latino men. Critics accuse the NYPD of hav­ing quo­tas, which places undue bur­den on cops to make arrests and write tick­ets. The Department has stri­dent­ly denied this, even as some mem­bers of the very Department has gone pub­lic claim­ing they are being forced to antag­o­nize and arrest peo­ple to bur­nish the per­cep­tion of a south­ern trend in crime. In oth­er cas­es Cops have tes­ti­fied that seri­ous crimes in white neigh­bor­hoods are being down­played and some­times not doc­u­ment­ed ‚to fur­ther the nar­ra­tive of declin­ing crime in the city.

The fact is that Police must have the abil­i­ty to rea­son­ably stop, ques­tion and if nec­es­sary search any­one they sus­pect of hav­ing com­mit­ted a crime, is about to com­mit , or is in the act of com­mit­ting a crime. So what exact­ly is the prob­lem? Why cant the police walk this fine line? Why can’t offi­cers be respect­ful and rea­son­able in serv­ing and pro­tect­ing? Many young men in New York City com­plain of being stopped and roughed up twice on one street by dif­fer­ent groups of cops all in the space of a few min­utes. They allege they are abused ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly . They allege when they complain,many com­plain of being searched sev­er­al time all in one day. Many com­plain of being arrest­ed and kept overnight, then released the next day with­out see­ing a Judge.

Commissioner Ray Kelly respond­ed to that claim by stat­ing the fol­low­ing .“To that point, last year 97 per­cent of all shoot­ing vic­tims were black or Hispanic and reside in low-income neigh­bor­hoods,” he said. “Public hous­ing where five per­cent of the city’s pop­u­la­tion resides expe­ri­ences 20 per­cent of the shoot­ings. There were more stops with sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty in neigh­bor­hoods with high­er crime because that’s where the crime is.” [Ray Kelly]

So does the NYPD Commissioner have a point? Yes he does, it is true that there are inor­di­nate amounts of crime in Black and Hispanic Neighborhoods. It is also true that the same can­not be said to be true in large­ly Caucasian neigh­bor­hoods. In cities all over America The rate of blacks killing blacks, and Latina gangs killing each oth­er is fright­en­ing. Police Departments have a duty not only to stamp it out but to make sure that it is dis­cour­aged. Police may only do so with strong no-non­sense approach which tells crim­i­nals exact­ly who is in charge.

New York city is not the only city with a crime prob­lem, Kansas city, Missouri: Little Rock Arkansas: Camden, New Jersey: Newberg, New York: Chicago, Illinois: Detroit, Michigan: Police Departments are respon­si­ble for cit­i­zen safe­ty, they are crit­i­cized when crime is out of con­trol yet lam­bast­ed when they adopt cer­tain mea­sures to deal effec­tive­ly with the can­cer of crime. With that said Police can­not oper­ate out­side of the laws they are sworn to uphold. That I believe is where the rub­ber meets the road. How do they pro­tect cit­i­zens rights , and pro­tect them from crime simul­ta­ne­ous­ly? It all comes down to how Police Officers do their jobs !

Those opposed to stop and frisk are jus­ti­fied in their out­rage at the instances of abuse, yet the Police Commissioner points to over 700 guns removed from the streets as a result of this process. Even as we reg­is­ter our dis­gust with the instances of humil­i­a­tion heaped onto our young peo­ple of col­or , we ignore the 700 weapons removed at our per­il. What we also ignore unfair­ly, are the amount of lives that may have been saved, and oth­er crimes pre­vent­ed as a result of the fear crim­i­nals have that they may be appre­hend­ed before they can car­ry out their crim­i­nal acts. In fact Ray Kelly has tran­scripts of con­ver­sa­tions sup­port­ing that very notion.

The solu­tion to the prob­lem lies in allow­ing Police to use stop and frisk as one tool in the arse­nal to fight crime. However police offi­cers must adhere to the guar­an­tees enshrined in law that they may only do so when they have rea­son­able cause to believe, that some­one may , have, or is about to com­mit a crime. It can­not be that the cri­te­ria for that sus­pi­cion is the col­or of one’s skin.

Even as Commissioner Ray Kelly points to the fact that when crimes goes up, the Black and Hispanic com­mu­ni­ty suf­fers the most, he must be mind­ful that these com­mu­ni­ties must also feel that the police work on their behalf. The entire cam­paign of keep­ing the streets safe, remov­ing guns from the streets , and down trend­ing crime sta­tis­tics as advanced by Mayor Bloomberg is miss­ing one com­po­nent. The entire pop­u­la­tion of the city must feel that thy are doing it on their behalf, not doing it on their backs. Michael Bloomberg would do well in under­stand­ing that act­ing like a sec­ond Giuliani is not a pos­i­tive for him.

It serves the inter­est of black lead­er­ship to face the real­i­ties of crime with­in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty, deny­ing the seri­ous­ness of it does noth­ing to fix the prob­lems. The socio- eco­nom­ic con­di­tions affect­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty cre­ates crim­i­nals. Young teenage women hav­ing babies out of wed­lock adds to the prob­lem. Fathers not tak­ing care of their chil­dren adds to the prob­lem. Black peo­ple claim­ing run down neigh­bor­hoods adds to the prob­lem. We have some work to do .