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During a press conference to introduce the NYPD's new fleet of hybrid patrol cars, Commissioner Ray Kelly revealed a new addition to the department's controversial "stop and frisk" repertoire: Explaining. The new policy, which went into effect last week, requires any officer stopping a person in the street for a pat-down to divulge "the reason, or reasons, why it occurred." And in a pilot program being tested in Harlem, the South Bronx, and East New York, the subject of the search will also be given a 3-by-5-inch card explaining why the stop and frisk is so not racial profiling.
Kelly announced the policy in response to questions about why he was skipping yesterday's City Council Public Safety Committee hearing about the department's stop and frisk practice. Last week Kelly had asked that the hearing be postponed because of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights. When Council Speaker Quinn went ahead with the hearing anyway, Kelly decided to send an underling to read a letter defending the policy, and the assistant refused to take questions.
Committee chairman Peter Vallone told the Times yesterday, "The speaker and I are very disappointed, first of all, that the Police Department did not answer questions... It seems that some of their best policy improvements, like this one, come on the eve of a public safety hearing, which then slants coverage of the hearing toward their new policy." According to the NYPD's records, cops stopped, frisked and searched 531,159 New Yorkers last year, up from 468,732 in 2007 and 315,483. In 2008, 51 percent of people stopped by police were black, 32 percent were Latino, and 11 percent were white. And 88 percent were totally innocent and sent on their way.
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Will cops hug those stopped after explaining?
Everybody get ready to be Grabbed Hard
wouldn't more frisks mean more crimes?
how can that be when crimes are down?
how about instead of a card, have Dispatch repeat the job that states the crime and description of perp?
That'll help those of us who solicit police beatings just so we can have someone to talk to. So...lonely.
Guess thats better than Stop, Frisk, Rape.
i was hoping for a Stop, Frisk, Happy Ending.
"And 88 percent were totally innocent and sent on their way." How about the other 12%? What's the percentage of criminals in society?
If the cops do the stop in the right way then there shouldn't be a problem. But then again we are talking NYPD here so things might get hairy at times. They need a refresher course in CPR.
I guess innocent until proven guilty is too much to ask in the land of the free
A-fucking-men to that!
Can someone explain to me how "stop and frisk" is Constitutional, even regardless of the troubling racial aspects of the policy?
I was never stopped and frisked but my brother was.
he was wearing one of those long vintage german military coats one finds at canal jeans. they thought he had a gun.
I think he wore it during spring so that raised some suspicion. (he went to SUNY binghamton was his explanation as it's cold up there)
and I'M the nutcase??
Great, so now I get a souvenir when frisked.
Would be cool if each time you get frisked, they hole punch the card. On your 5th frisk - you could get a free coffee.
That's marvelous. LOLZ
Briefly: it starts with the "stop" part, which is sometimes called a "Terry stop" after the Supreme Court decision that allowed it (Terry v. Ohio, 1968). Police can stop anyone if they have a "reasonable suspicion" That the person has, is currently, or is about to commit a crime. That suspicion can be based on behavior ("furtive movements," presence at a crime scene, intoxicated or overly emotional, etc.) or to an extent on appearance (not appropriate for the time or place, matching description of a wanted person, etc). "Racial profiling" would mean that none of those legal justifications are present but a person is stopped solely because of their race, which would not be allowed under Terry.
Once a legal stop has been made, the person can be frisked if an "experienced police officer" judges it necessary for his own safety or that of someone else. The search is only for weapons or contraband, and restricted under the "plain feel" doctrine, which essentially means that anything they find must be readily identifiable as a weapon or contraband.
That was meant as a reply to Qraymond's question above regarding constitutionality.
Thanks-- that's really helpful.
Yep. The only thing that cops need point to an "articulable and specific" reason for the stop/frisk. The problem with Terry stops is that cops are allowed to use their expertise and prior experiences to support their reasonable suspicions -- that is, they can provide articulable and specific reasons for stopping somebody in a high-crime area, based on what the "usual criminal suspect" does in that setting.
Also, cops use pretextual stops to mask racial profiling. For example, a patrol in a high-crime area might spot a group of minority teenagers in a brand new Escalade and what they will do is watch the car closely for any type of traffic violation (it is impossible to spend more than 5 minutes driving without violating at least one rule), and once they have a "valid" reason to stop the car, they will go ahead and do so. Anything in plain view (drugs, guns, etc) can be seized and brought in as evidence, and, if the "suspects" are acting suspicious, then the cops can do the Terry frisk AND a search of the car.
Really, cars are the least private places in the world, cops have almost complete access to them and it's supported by SCOTUS.
Cops very frequently (more often than not, I suspect) don't wait for a violation to stop the vehicle -- they just stop it, do what they want to do, and if they come up w/ any dirt, claim that the driver committed some minor violation to justify the stop. Absolutely SOP.
Car searches have recently changed. Car searches after arrest can now only look for items related to the crime you're arrested for. Other items found would presumably be excluded. However in practice I'd imagine that cops will simply get warrants for most of these searches and everything will be admissible again. But no longer can a suspended license or other paperwork violation lead to a search of your car.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042102125.html
"if the "suspects" are acting suspicious, then the cops can do the Terry frisk AND a search of the car."
In a Terry stop, they can't search the car although as you said earlier anything in plain sight is fair game. Until last week, they could do a complete search of the car if they made arrest. In a bit of good news, though, the Supreme Court just modified that: basically the car can now be searched incident to an arrest only when and to the extent that it's necessary to secure the safety of the officers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/22scotus.html?scp=1&sq=vehicle%20search%20warrant&st=cse
Your points on pretextual stops are on the mark. In almost any situation, a reason can be rationalized for making a Terry stop even in some cases using some exaggeration or even outright lies. That makes racial profiling hard to prove: it's easy to that a person made "furtive movements" or "looked nervous" upon seeing police approach. And, is the same "furtive movement" ignored when done by people of one race, while resulting in a stop when done by others?
Sorry, I should have read all the way to the bottom before replying.
However, I believe your interpretation is incorrect. Searches for evidence supporting the crime are allowed regardless of officer safety considerations. Cop smells pot, he can look for it.. doesn't matter if he feels 100% safe or not.
Absolutely, evidence supporting the crime. But we were talking about a simple traffic stop, such as the situation you described where police might tail a vehicle waiting for a minor traffic violation so that they can make a pretextual stop. There is no crime then that would support a vehicle search at all (although, of course, they can always ask for permission). They can of course look inside, and if they see contraband can seize it. At that point you're beyond Terry, because now there's probably cause instead of reasonable suspicion.
"Smelling marijuana" better result in marijuana, even trace evidence of it having been there, being found in the car. If that pretext is used and found to be totally unsupported, evidence of anything else will almost certainly be excluded.
If they make an arrest, they've always been able then to make a full search of the vehicle and its contents. Under the new ruling, they can search only for safety or for evidence that would support the arrest -- I didn't go into that in the last message because again was discussing a pretextual traffic stop. But the distinction is this: the case that resulted in this ruling involved a driver arrested for having a suspended license. They searched his car and found cocaine in a jacket pocket. Under this ruling, that search is not allowed, because there's no way searching a car would find evidence of his driving with a suspended license. A search for "officer safety" wouldn't be allowable, because he was already handcuffed. Nothing inside the car was reasonably a threat.
On the other hand, if they'd arrested him because he was suspected for example of having robbed a store, a search for evidence supporting that would be legal.
But again all of that goes beyond "stop and frisk" and Terry stops, the guidelines of which all apply to what's allowable before an arrest has been made.
The Amazing truth to the illusion of crime.
http://www.engaged-zen.org/articles/Darrow-Crime.html
According to the NYPD's records, cops stopped, frisked and searched 531,159 New Yorkers last year, up from 468,732 in 2007 and 315,483. In 2008, 51 percent of people stopped by police were black, 32 percent were Latino, and 11 percent were white. And 88 percent were totally innocent and sent on their way. ...this is also the demograph of a typically bad neighborhood in NYC. EX: Brownsville, East New York. These places are also the most violent. NYPD isnt wrong for following and frisking people in typically violent nighborhoods.
My boyfriend just spent last night in jail as a result of a stop-and-frisk. He was kidnapped on the way home from the storage unit where we keep puppets for our store. I guess they thought he looked like he'd have drugs. Instead he had one Mini Hedgehog, one Mini Monarch Butterfly, and a Black Ant hand puppet. The police stopped him for no reason and ran his ID and found a bench warrant from 2000 so he was arrested and spent the night in jail. I'm waiting for him to get home from court now. He was walking down a main street in Crown Heights that is NOT a place where drugs are sold. I guess he'll get a note explaining why. I don't understand why the police can stop someone for walking down the street carrying puppets.