Stop and Frisk an Issue in the Mayoral Race

Retired NYPD detective Carlton Berkeley demonstrates a mock stop and frisk.

By Valerie Vele

As the mayoral race in New York City heats up, many candidates are taking a stand on the practice of stop and frisk. New York City Comptroller John Liu held a March town hall meeting at the Latino Pastoral Center where he took a firm position against the New York Police Department’s policy, saying he was the only candidate who wanted it not just reformed, but abolished. Liu called stop and frisk racial profiling and said it was making New York City less safe.

“We don’t have to mend stop and frisk, we need to end stop and frisk,” Liu said.

The NYPD stops and frisks thousands of New Yorkers each year, the majority of whom are young people of color. In February, the NYPD reported its five millionth stop and frisk. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the police have stopped 533,042 New Yorkers in 2012, down from 685,724 in 2011. Of these, 89 percent were innocent, 55 percent were black and 32 percent were Latino. The NYPD maintains that the practice is valuable in recovering illegal weapons, but the NYCLU counters that guns are recovered in less than 0.2 percent of stops and thus does not justify a practice that it calls “intrusive” and “humiliating.”

Audience members who have been stopped and frisked raise their hands.

Many minorities say they feel it is form of racial profiling, said the town hall attendees, some of whom shared their experiences with stop and frisk. Liu asked the audience to raise both hands if they were stopped and frisked multiple times. More than half did. Some said the practice creates a barrier of distrust and a disconnection between the police and the people they are sworn to protect. Many said that they felt like their rights were violated

Liu proposed alternatives to stop and frisk that he said have had positive outcomes in the past, such as a gun buy back. Such a strategy would get more guns off the street, he said. This, Liu added, would be a way of rebuilding the relationship between the NYPD and the community, especially since 89 percent percent of the people who were stopped were innocent.

The event coincided with the start of an ongoing federal class action lawsuit brought against the NYPD that questions the constitutionality of stop and frisk.