11/15/2012
By Ivan Pereira
A study released Thursday by the New York Civil Liberties Union showed a decrease in the number of NYPD “stop and frisks,” but the organization continued to call on the police to end the controversial tactic.
During the first nine months of this year, cops stopped 383,897 people, a 30% drop from the same period in 2011, according to the NYCLU.
The group’s executive director, Donna Lieberman, said the numbers were startling because the majority of those stopped were both innocent and minorities.
“A walk to the subway, corner deli or school should not carry the assumption that you will be confronted by police, but that remains the disturbing reality for young men of color in New York City,” Lieberman said in a statement. The NYPD denied the racial profiling allegations.
“The stops comport with the descriptions … of suspects provided by victims,” a spokesman for the department said Thursday.
Both Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have repeatedly defended the practice, noting the stops help remove illegal guns off the streets.
The City Council is weighing a set of bills that would make “stop and frisk” more transparent, including one that would require officers to state why they are stopping a person.
