Judge Rules NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” Policy is Unconstitutional

[RedSonRising]

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New York Judge Shira Scheindlin has ruled that the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policy is unconstitutional.

She asserts that the policy amounts to “indirect racial profiling,” and violates the fourth amendment.
Scheindlin has appointed an independent monitor to oversee changes to the NYPD’s conduct.

From Reuters:

“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” Scheindlin wrote in her opinion.
The class action was considered the broadest legal challenge to stop and frisk, a tactic in which city police stop people they suspect of unlawful activity and frisk those they suspect are carrying weapons.
Scheindlin’s decision follows an exhaustive nine-week trial that pitted the NYPD’s interest in keeping New York’s crime rate down against black and Latino plaintiffs who felt discriminated against. Scheindlin presided over the trial without a jury.

[RedSonRising]

In Brooklyn, Black And Latino Men Who Experienced “Stop-And-Frisk” Applaud Judge’s Ruling Against It

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After a federal judged ruled New York City’s “Stop and Frisk” police policy to be unconstitutional, African-American and Latino men in Brooklyn applauded the ruling and chronicled their experiences with being stopped, frisked, questioned and even detained by officers.
“I’ve been stopped for no reason, I’ve been jailed for no reason,” Kelvin Jannette, 27, of Brooklyn, told BuzzFeed, as he worked handing out fliers.
Janette told the story of a time he was leaving his apartment building, walking down a wheelchair accessible ramp, when he says police yelled, “You come here!”
“They said, ‘You were shooting dice.’ I was like, ‘I’m not doing anything!’” he said, as he acted out what he says is necessary precaution: Holding up his hands and “shimmying” his pants down so they would see he didn’t have a gun.
“It would be so beautiful if cops treated people with respect, period. They show up and treat you like you killed somebody,” he said.

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Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, ruled that the policy — 4.4 million stops between January 2004 and June 2012 — 80 percent of which were stops of blacks or Hispanics, was unconstitutional and called for remedies to be made.
These include an outside lawyer monitoring the NYPD’s compliance with the constitution, a pilot program for officers in five precincts to wear cameras on their bodies to record street encounters and community meetings to reform stop-and-frisk.
She cited plaintiff testimony to characterize each stop as “a demeaning and humiliating experience.”
“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” the judge wrote. She found that when minorities were stopped, they “were 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.”

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Michael Fye, 25, said he has never been taken to jail but has been approached by cops and asked questions.
“I told them, ‘I’m not out here selling weed, I’m not shooting dice, I’m just having a conversation with my friends.’”
Jose Rodriguez, 40, who lives in Brooklyn, said he was stopped because police said he fit the description of a robbery suspect. He acknowledged that “without law and order their would be chaos” but says cops could do a better job of having their badges out and identifying themselves as officers.
Jannette agrees. “If they’re gonna frisk, they should follow procedure. They should present their badge and let people know you’re a cop,” he says.

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Jose Rodriguez says when he was younger he would give “lip” to police when they stopped him for no reason, but not anymore.

In a Monday afternoon press conference Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly defended stop-and-frisk tactics as necessary, and said the city will appeal the ruling.
“Victims and perpetrators of crime are disproportionately young, minority men,” Bloomberg said, becoming agitated as he defended the policy.
He said the pilot program featuring cameras on officers would be a failure.
“A camera on a police officer would be a disaster. It’s a solution that is not a solution to the problem.”
Asked what the ruling would mean for his legacy, he snapped back.
“I don’t know, this is 12 years now that people have been able to walk down the street without looking over their shoulder,” he bristled. “I’d say that’s a good legacy.”
For his part, Jannette says he understands that police should stop people, but he thinks they can do a better job in how they go about it.
He said he’s going to look into the community meetings that Judge Scheindlin recommended as a remedy. “I have some suggestions.”

[RedSonRising]

Can a Mod Please cut off the semicolon and everything afterward in the thread title? The editor won't let me.

Also, I'm not sure if this fits better under Discrimination, but I thought it was important enough to place in Politics.

[Sasha]

done, also fixed the layout of your posts a bit, hope you dont mind

[RedSonRising]

done, also fixed the layout of your posts a bit, hope you dont mind

Not at all, I appreciate it.

[RedSonRising]

http://m.newyorklawjournal.com/module/alm/app/ny.do#!/article/1076109004

NYPD Agrees to Purge Stop-Frisk Databank

John Caher
New York Law Journal
08/08/2013

The Bloomberg administration has agreed under a settlement announced on Wednesday to purge a New York City Police Department database containing personal information on individuals who were stopped by authorities, and also agreed to pay $10,000 to the lead plaintiff in a putative class action.

Under the terms of the settlement, the city will within 90 days delete the names and addresses of all individuals who were stopped, questioned and/or frisked. It will also pay a settlement to the only plaintiff seeking damages, freelance journalist Daryl Khan. The other members of the class sought only injunctive relief.

Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and lead counsel in the case, said in an interview that hundreds of thousands of names of innocent individuals will be erased from the NYPD database as a result of the settlement.

"The immediate practical importance is that the department was using the database to conduct criminal investigations, which meant that if you got stopped on the street and were in the database, you were a target of an investigation even if you had done absolutely nothing wrong," Dunn said. "This will end that completely."

Lino v. City of New York, 106579/10, focused on two named plaintiffs, Clive Lino and Khan.

Lino, who is black and claims he was stopped at least 13 times by police, alleged he was thrown against a wall in April 2009, frisked and issued a summons for spitting in public and possessing an open container.

Khan, who had written about the NYPD for more than a decade, alleged he was pulled over in Brooklyn in 2009, thrown against a wall, searched and ultimately accused of riding his bicycle on a sidewalk and disorderly conduct.

Although all of the charges against Lino and Khan were dismissed, their names remained in the NYPD database, even after a change in the law forced the city to expunge much of the information in the so-called UF-250 file.

Legislation signed in 2010 by Governor David Paterson barred the NYPD from retaining stop-and-frisk data when the individual questioned was let go without an arrest or summons (NYLJ, July 19, 2010). But the legislation did not require expunging information on cases where the target was arrested or issued a summons, even if the charge was ultimately dismissed, leaving the city with a partial investigatory tool.

On behalf of Lino and Khan and several hundred thousand other citizens, the NYCLU brought a class action arguing that the records should also be expunged.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe dismissed the case for lack of standing, but she was reversed by the Appellate Division, First Department (NYLJ, Dec. 21). The appeals court revived the plaintiffs' case, resulting ultimately in the settlement.

"It is a relief to know that my personal information will be cleared from the stop-and-frisk database," Lino said in a statement. "It is humiliating enough to be stopped and frisked for no reason, having your name and address kept in a police database only prolongs the indignity of it."

Khan said in a statement that he has never been arrested, has no criminal record and, as a freelance journalist writing about the NYPD, knows "that good police work is done in this city without a sprawling database of innocent people's information."

Dunn said the fact that the city agreed to expunge the names "signals to me what we thought all along, that the database was not a useful law enforcement tool. I do not believe they would have settled if they thought otherwise."

Celeste Koeleveld, executive assistant corporation counsel for public safety, said the settlement is an "outgrowth" of the 2010 legislation, which the city and NYPD had opposed.

"In 2010, when that legislation was being considered, the police department did certainly say they would want to have the information in a database so it could be searched and used for investigative purposes and they felt that was a legitimate use of the information," Koeleveld said. "Over the objection of the police department and the city, the law was passed any way."

Koeleveld said the law depleted the bulk of the information the NYPD was retaining in the UF-250 database. She said an incomplete databank was of comparatively little use for investigative purposes and the city opted to settle rather than continue the fight.

Assistant corporation counsel Janice Casey Silverberg represented the city. She said the settlement is consistent with the 2010 law, "which made the need for the database moot."

NYPD deputy commissioner Paul Browne said "there was no practical reason to continue this litigation" in light of the legislation.