Lawsuit: N.Y. police stops racist, 'unconstitutional'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Lawsuit: N.Y. police stops racist, 'unconstitutional'
2:05p.m. EDT March 18, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — A law suit challenging the New York Police Department's practice of detaining and sometimes searching anyone officers deemed suspicious got under way Monday with a lawyer saying that officers have been wrongly stopping tens of thousands of young men based solely on their race.

Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights said the policy is legal, but the department is illegally targeting black and Hispanic men because of their race.

Charney called many of the half million annual stops a "frightening and degrading experience" for "thousands if not millions" of New Yorkers over the last decade. He called them "arbitrary, unnecessary and unconstitutional."

The NYPD stopped close to 531,159 people on the street last year, up from more than 90,000 a decade ago. Fifty-one percent of those stopped were black, 32 percent Hispanic and 11 percent white. According to U.S. Census figures, there are 8.2 million people in the city: 26 percent are black, 28 percent are Hispanic and 44 percent are white.


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/18/ny-police-stops-racist/1997091/

[Xipe Totec]

1. That means you're 7.8 times more likely to be stopped by police if you are black

than if you are white. That's a glaring discrepancy in treatment.

[Igel]

3. Yes, it is.

And you can predict how the defense will go.

Blacks are 56% of (alleged) murderers whose race is reported; whites are under 6%.

Blacks are 49% of rape suspects. Whites are 11%.

Blacks account for 48% of felony sex crime suspects. Whites, 11%.

While only 80% of robbery suspects' race is known (as opposed to far higher #s for sex crimes and murderers), blacks are 71% of robbery suspects and whites are 4% of robbery suspects.

These are NYPD #s for 2011. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/yearend2011enforcementreport.pdf

We can dispute them and say whites don't report crimes to the police nearly as often as blacks. Perhaps because whites have a higher distrust of NYPD officers?

A glaring disparity in treatment is prima facie evidence of discrimination. Unless a sound motivation can be provided for it, making it not a "disparity" but "proportionate."

Now, this is stop-and-frisk. However, the argument's going to be whether or not stop-and-frisk is a legitimate response to disproproportionate reported suspect #s. Is the "broken-window" theory racist on its face or not? Does policing for small crimes lead to a diminution is the rate of more serious crimes? And is the motivation behind the idea racist on its own?

A current idea in education--by "current" I don't mean "new" but "still fairly common" is that allowing small infractions in the classroom will simply encourage students to greater infractions. Sounds similar to these ears.

I suspect the NYPD will lose. But I'll wait until a jury's heard the evidence allowed by the judge and rendered a verdict.

[Xipe Totec]

5. Tell me what you're looking for, and I'll tell you what you'll find.

It's called confirmation bias.

[siligut]

2. Something has to be done

If a lawsuit is what it takes, then so be it.

[Cal Carpenter]

4. Stop and Frisk has got to go

Rec'd