The family of a 15-year-old honor student is suing the city after she was tackled by plainclothes police officers after matching the profile of a shoplifter. Last Friday afternoon, police in the 78th Precinct received a description of shoplifters as "two female black teens, dark hair," one with a ponytail. Brittany Rowley was walking down Prospect Park West with a friend; the two were on the way to the library. Suddenly an unmarked police car appeared. “I thought we were being abducted,” Rowley tells the Daily News. The girls ran, but two officers tackled them. "Why did you fucking run? I should punch you," Rowley says one officer told her. more ›

Despite the constant crowing from the NYPD and city officials that the police department's stop-and-frisk policy is a necessary nuisance for New Yorkers (mostly those who are black and brown!), a federal judge today granted class-action status in a lawsuit against the NYPD that claims the practice violates the constitutional rights of blacks and Hispanics. more ›

The city has allocated $1.6 million to fund the revamped Civilian Complaint Review Board, which has traditionally been a toothless, opaque system that was easily dismissed by the NYPD, but will now have the power to prosecute police officers accused of wrongdoing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the board's Administrative Prosecution Unit will include a chief, a deputy, ten prosecutors, and five investigators, and the funding will kick in on July 1. more ›

The NYPD is on pace to break last year's record 601,055 stop-and-frisks (that's 1,900 people a day). According to the Times, the department released data yesterday (on a Saturday? Hmmm) that shows police made 203,500 stops from January through March of this year—last year it was 183,326 during the same time period. Your move, McDonald's. more ›

A report released yesterday by the NYCLU uses the NYPD's own numbers on stop-and-frisk to reveal the depth of racial disparities and ineffectiveness of the policy. The report constitutes the most comprehensive analysis of NYPD stop-and-frisk activity ever conducted. "In the most basic sense, there are no surprises here," said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. "We see the same targeting of totally innocent people by the police that we have seen since the beginning of the Bloomberg administration, but this analysis paints the most vivid and damning picture yet of how the police department routinely abuses the stop-and-frisk tactic." more ›

If you're looking for a good place to stash some illicit substances, you can totally just hail a taxi now—the NYPD has been issued an order prohibiting cops from searching or pulling passengers from cabs. The operational order was launched by Police Commissioner Raymond "Stop Criticizing Stop and Frisk" Kelly two weeks ago, and came out of a lawsuit filed by two men who were reportedly pulled out of livery cars and frisked by police officers in separate incidents, one in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. more ›

This morning at 1 Police Plaza, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced a new citywide campaign to combat domestic violence. Beginning today, advertisements will be displayed on bus shelters, phone kiosks, and newsstands across the five boroughs in English, Spanish, and Russian. The objective of these ads, not unlike the familiar "If You See Something, Say Something" posters found throughout the subway system, is to encourage New Yorkers to speak up if they suspect a family member, friend, coworker or neighbor is the victim of domestic violence. “Silence is an accomplice of domestic violence,” said the police commissioner. “That’s why people should heed the message of this campaign, ‘Don’t mind your own business.’” more ›

Last week we learned that the NYPD and the FBI attempted to glean information on the May Day protests by executing bench warrants on people they believed were involved with planning Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and interrogating them. One of those people, who goes by the pseudonym Shawn Carrié, spoke to WNYC about how he was detained by the NYPD on May Day for over 13 hours on a warrant for a public urination charge that didn't belong to him. more ›

iPhone-related thefts are up 44 percent this year, but that doesn't really seem to bother Mayor Bloomberg. At his budget announcement yesterday Hizzoner was asked about the spike in crime and replied nonchalantly that, "If the worst problem we have is iPhone stealing..." Then he turned to the police commissioner added, "Ray, you’d better get on this iPhone right away. This is serious!" Somehow we suspect the parents of the chef killed for his iPhone, or the teen stabbed in the face for his, or the 81-year-old pushed in the subway tracks for his, wouldn't appreciate the mayor's tone. more ›

With the Democratic candidates for mayor pretty well locked up, much has been made about who will run on the other side. There have been lots of rich people pushing for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to make a go for it, and billionaire John Catsimatidis has expressed interest if Kelly declines, but there are others! What would you think our current Mayor's girlfriend Diana Taylor made a go for Gracie Mansion? She's has been wanting to spend a night there and previously mulled a Senate run—and it appears that GOPers have noticed. more ›

It's no secret that Mike Lupica has scrawled his name and Ray Kelly's into a heart onto the ole' sycamore on the Daily News' playground, and today the columnist tells us all why Kelly would make such a fantastic mayor of New York City. "Some of the people polled say Kelly doesn’t know enough about issues beyond crime or terrorism," Lupica writes, "But there happens to be a good reason for that: Kelly has spent the last decade fighting crime and terrorism in his current job." So, that means we should give him a pass on the whole, "no other experience other than fighting crime or terrorism" thing? more ›

Over the weekend we received an email from an AOL account, asking us to "FIND OUT THE TRUTH ALWAYS" with regard to our recent (and long-standing) coverage of billionaire Gristedes CEO John Catsimatidis. Turns out, the email was from THE MAN HIMSELF, who urged us to give him a call this morning. We spoke to Catsimatidis (who carries the same gun as James Bond) about whether he'll actually run for mayor, Stand Your Ground laws, and how, despite his outsized personality, he's really just a "plain vanilla person." more ›

A law professor and a law student at Yale University wrote an op-ed piece in the Times this morning decrying the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program, a program which has come under quite a bit of fire this year. In a piece entitled "Better Ways to Police Than Stop-and-Frisk," James Forman Jr., a clinical professor at Yale Law School, and Trevor Stutz, a third year law student who is a member of Forman's Innovations in Policing Clinic, argued that stopping and frisking random selections of young, predominantly black men is not the only method to decrease violence in minority neighborhoods, nor is it the most effective one. more ›

The drumbeat for a Ray Kelly mayoral bid grows stronger every month. The latest Mayor Kelly push comes from former state GOP Chairman William Powers, who is in charge of the party’s newly created statewide “advisory committee." Powers tells the Post's Fred Dicker that Kelly could defeat City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the general election, even in predominantly left-leaning NYC. "Remember, a lot of people didn’t think Rudy could beat Dinkins because he was a Republican, and he did," Powers tells the Post, adding "BWAHAHAAHA!" more ›

New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is considering whether to release a report on the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices. A source at Schneiderman's office tells the Daily News that there is a "working group" that is reviewing public data, including the racial breakdown of those who are stopped. Documents obtained by the paper also show that Schneiderman has met twice in the last several months with his staff to discuss stop-and-frisk. "They're still very early in the process," the source said. more ›

FYI: Not all police cars in the city are the NYPD's! At least, that's Police Commissioner Kelly's concern, so he's ordering that any police cruiser that goes in for regular maintenance get a new decal that says "NYPD Police," versus plain ol' "Police," which is what it says on the front and back of marked police cruisers now. more ›

Speaking to his BFF Mike Lupica about the shooting of four police officers in Brooklyn on Sunday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly expressed frustration that illegal weapons like the ones used by the perpetrator in the incident continued to pour into the city. “These are the guns that are turning our city into a shooting gallery. We had three cops shot last year. This year we’ve had eight shot already, and it’s only Easter," Kelly said. "I’m tired of this!” more ›

A report prepared by an outside consulting firm on the city's revamped 911 system claims the project—which is over budget by $1 billion and is scheduled to be implemented in 2015—has actually made emergency response time slower. "The system is as inefficient and ineffective an operation as you could get," a source told the Post. "Seconds count in emergencies. People are going to die." more ›

With its full-throated defense of the NYPD's Muslim surveillance programs and the way it cheered the department's violent crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protesters, you might say the New York Post is cozily nestled in a certain blue pocket. But today's Post carries a shocking revelation: they can be critical of the cops...about parking. Former police commissioner William Bratton possesses an NYPD parking pass that allows him to dodge the law while on "official business." more ›

An NYPD sergeant and 19-year veteran of the force says that cops systematically downgraded and misclassified serious crimes in Queens' 100th Precinct to pad crime stats, then transferred him to a graveyard shift in retaliation. "I just couldn't take it anymore," Sergeant Robert Borrelli told ABC of the pressure to manipulate crime statistics. "There came a point I finally broke and I'm like, you know, this has to stop." more ›

Several hundred Occupy Wall Street protesters are currently on a winding march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square to protest NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, the department's stop-and-frisk program and the recent spates of violence committed by officers against demonstrators. At least three people have been arrested so far for refusing to leave the street, and while the "scooter cops" in the photo above may be a gag, the NYPD's presence at the march appears to be rapidly growing. more ›

Four police officers involved in the 2006 killing of Sean Bell are being forced to resign after a department judge ruled that their actions were improper. According to the Times, Commissioner Ray Kelly made the decision Friday evening. The detective who fired the first shots, Gescard Isnora, will lose his pension. Detectives Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver, who also fired shots at Bell, will receive reduced pensions. Lieutenant Gary Napoli, who was a supervising officer at the scene, will receive a pension. “There was nothing in the record to warrant overturning the decision of the department’s trial judge,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. more ›

More internal NYPD documents obtained by the Associated Press show that—are you sitting down—the department has busy been infiltrating left-leaning political organizations. What else is new? At this point, if you told us the NYPD had a surveillance team assigned 24/7 to every New Yorker who wore an Obama "HOPE" pin in 2008 we wouldn't be surprised. Of course, we've seen this movie before: Setting aside the NYPD's infiltration of activist groups preparing for the 2004 Republican Convention, this sort of thing goes way back. Just say the word COINTELPRO in certain circles and pull up a chair. But it doesn't make it any less troubling—unless you think Huff Post writer Jordan Flaherty is a potentially bloodthirsty terrorist the NYPD needs to keep an eye on. more ›

Dozens of protesters gathered in Foley Square this afternoon and marched to 1 Police Plaza to demand that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tender his resignation. The protest was spurred by the string of violent arrests made by the NYPD as protesters attempted to reclaim Zuccotti Park on the six-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protests. "This beast will lock you up because you are poor, because you are queer, because you are black," Chino Hardin of the Center for NuLeadership said. Though no arrests occurred, the Mayor's personal army greeted protesters with an imposing presence of officers and barricades surrounding the plaza. more ›

The NYCLU has analyzed the locations of the 684,330 people who were stopped and frisked by the NYPD last year and has determined the top 10 neighborhoods where the tactic was used the most. Precincts in East New York and Brownsville came in first and second on the list, with 31,100 and 25,167 people stopped respectively. The only Precinct in Manhattan that made the list was the 23rd in Harlem. “My community doesn’t have one of the highest rates of crime,” Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito told the Daily News. That's strange, considering the NYPD only targets high-crime areas and would never, ever racially profile. more ›

In the wake of this weekend's violent confrontations between protesters and the NYPD, Mayor Bloomberg has a message for Occupy Wall Street: the days of pre-eviction Zuccotti are over. According to the Times, Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference yesterday, "You want to get arrested? We'll accommodate you." He added, “If you have something, really, to say, that would be a great contribution, nobody can hear you when everybody’s yelling and screaming and pushing and shoving." Remember: "this is New York City, you can't be making noise at night." more ›