Results tagged “constitutionalrights”

A study of data concerning NYPD stop and frisk practices was released by the Rand Corporation last Tuesday. Reactions to the report were so varied that it's difficult to say if Rand came to any conclusive findings whatsoever. The New York Times lede indicates that police are biased against blacks and Hispanics. "Whites and members of minorities have a roughly equal chance of being stopped by police officers and questioned on the street in New...

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Fire Department, saying that FDNY exams in 1999 and 2002 discriminated against black and Hispanic candidates. Black and HIspanic candidates fail the exam at much higher rates, and currently, the blacks and Hispanics make up only 7.5% of the FDNY's 11,000 firefighters. The NY Times notes that the fire departments of LA and Philadelphia are more than 40% black or Hispanic.

Gail Donoghue, special counsel for the city’s Law Department, began the hearing by telling Judge Haight that he overstepped his judicial powers in February when he essentially made his own court the enforcer for police guidelines that govern the investigation of political activity. Ms. Donoghue said that by making the court the final arbiter of police surveillance issues, the judge had in fact begun to “oversee operations of the Intelligence Division of the Police Department.”

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