Results tagged “stopfrisk”

More than 85% of people stopped and frisked by the NYPD are released without an arrest or summons. But just because the police let you go, doesn't mean they forget all about you! The NYPD maintains a database of more than 500,000 people stopped, questioned, frisked, and released each year. And Councilman Peter Vallone wants the department to hit delete.

After the NYCLU called attention to a record-breaking number of NYPD stop and frisks for the first three months of 2009, the department's spokesman is out defending the stats [pdf], which reveal—shocker—a continued emphasis on targeting blacks and Latinos. And at the going rate, the NYPD will stop and frisk 626,767 suspects in 2009, which would shatter the current record of 531,159, set in 2008. But police spokesman Paul J. Browne reassures the Times, "In a city where police make 400,000 arrests annually based on the higher standard of probable cause, 500,000 stops annually is not unreasonable...We believe that there is a relationship between stops and crime prevention, although you can't document crimes that did not occur as a result of stops involving suspicious activity." Ah, he has us with that koan, which is sort of like the sound of one hand cuffing. Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. also has the NYPD's back, telling reporters, "Stop and frisks have been going up for the past three years and the reason is because they work." The Constitution's nice and quaint, but whatever works, right?