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NYPD Stop and Frisk Ruled Unconstitutional

Gaius46 said:
I think the issue here is that the NYPD brass has apparently ordered officers to find any reason to stop someone (within certain neighborhoods and with certain groups of people) with each stop being tracked in database and , according to some cops, the number of stops they make being used as a measure of their performance.

So while under Terry police certainly have a right to stop suspicious people and perform protective pat downs this really seems to smell like the NYPD institutionally ignoring the limits - few as they are - that Terry places on them.
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All true, but the misuse or even illegal use of a procedure is not a reflection of the procedure.
There are people on this thread claiming that stop and frisk is unconstitutional. It's not. People have to discern between an individual police officer abusing his power and constitutionally accepted police practices.

Also, if someone's behavior truly is "reasonably suspicious" they SHOULD be in a database. If the same person is tracked several times a month, that's an important piece of information of which the police department needs to be aware.

As far as the brass' "quota" is concerned, the number of stops divided by the number of police officers comes out to roughly one per month per cop. If a New York City police officer doesn't see a "reasonably suspicious" individual once a month then the "brass" should be judging him harshly.
 
Mr.Nick said:
In Illinois they frisk you then put you in handcuffs then tell you you're "being detained" for their (LEO's) "own safety."
Cops are no different than the SS.....
If they had microscopes they'd shove em up your yahoos and claim: "for our own safety."
Cops are Nazi's and the first line of action when it comes to our tyrannical government(s)...
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If this is a parody you're a genius.
 
Mr.Nick said:
It's reality... I know because I have been through the motions many of times.
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I'm sorry you've had your troubles, but when you say you live under Nazis and tyranny you diminish the true torment of those who actually have.
 
Gaius46 said:
From the NY Times a couple of days ago I haven't read the opinion yet but according to the article the judge came down pretty hard on the Bloomberg administration and the Police department.
All I can say is it's about time.
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When crime goes up again, with minorities shooting each other in the streets openly, will you still be praising this idiot judge, or will you blame Bush for it?
 
madisonr said:
When crime goes up again, with minorities shooting each other in the streets openly, will you still be praising this idiot judge, or will you blame Bush for it?
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It won't take long before we see the results of this decision. Three years should be enough.
 
Brooks said:
But that's the nature of any societal study. There is no, what scientists call, control group, therefore there is no discernible way to prove anything.
We also can't present "one shred of evidence" that even having a police department plays a part in reducing crime. They patrol and make arrests but we can't prove that they have "played any part in the reduction of crime."

The proof you are requesting in your question will never exist so the lack of this evidence is meaningless.
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On the other then there is no reason to accept as true the Mayor or Police Commissioner's statements that the program does reduce crime. The program's states purpose is to take illegal guns off the street and it does that in very few cases, in 2003 the police found 604 guns while doing 160,851 stops, a 0.4% success rate, and in 2012 they found 780 in 685,724 stops, a 0.1% success rate. (source NY Times)

Given that and given the general trend in reducing crime nationwide we do have reason to suspect that the program isn't a significant contributor to crime reduction. In either case it's a moot point
if the program leads to systemic 4A violations, in which case even if it is effective it needs to stop.


Brooks said:
In that case the police officer is breaking the law. That's an issue of criminality and poor supervision.
It's not a reflection of the stop and frisk procedure if the procedure is used improperly.
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Brooks said:
All true, but the misuse or even illegal use of a procedure is not a reflection of the procedure.
There are people on this thread claiming that stop and frisk is unconstitutional. It's not. People have to discern between an individual police officer abusing his power and constitutionally accepted police practices.

Also, if someone's behavior truly is "reasonably suspicious" they SHOULD be in a database. If the same person is tracked several times a month, that's an important piece of information of which the police department needs to be aware.

As far as the brass' "quota" is concerned, the number of stops divided by the number of police officers comes out to roughly one per month per cop. If a New York City police officer doesn't see a "reasonably suspicious" individual once a month then the "brass" should be judging him harshly.
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The judge found supervision to be complicit in the criminality.

When I speak about "stop and frisk" I'm speaking a NYPD program to find illegal weapons using Terry stops as a justification to pat down large numbers of people, especially minorities and especially in certain neighborhoods. I am not speaking about Terry stops themselves which are constitutional.

Your numbers are a little suspect. First while there are 35,000 officers in the NYPD the patrol bureau makes up something like half to two thirds of that number of which some percentage doesn't do routine patrol work at all. And since we're talking primarily a relatively small number of neighborhoods the actual number of officers who routinely implement the program is even smaller. No idea what the number is but it's certain that the average number of stops per month per officer is much higher than 1.
 
madisonr said:
When crime goes up again, with minorities shooting each other in the streets openly, will you still be praising this idiot judge, or will you blame Bush for it?
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If so the NYPD will have to find a Constitutional means of dealing with the issue. Widespread violations of people's constitutional rights can never be an acceptable police practice.

Don't say stupid things. Why in hell would I blame Bush or are you assuming I'm some kind of bleeding heart liberal (I'm not) who'd blame Bush for every wrong in the world? He has enough of his own stupidity to
answer for without having to answer for the stupidity of the NYPD.
 
Gaius46 said:
1. The judge found supervision to be complicit in the criminality.
2. When I speak about "stop and frisk" I'm speaking a NYPD program to find illegal weapons using Terry stops as a justification to pat down large numbers of people, especially minorities and especially in certain neighborhoods. I am not speaking about Terry stops themselves which are constitutional.
3. Your numbers are a little suspect. First while there are 35,000 officers in the NYPD....
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1. Then the judge and I are in agreement in that regard.
There's another issue that causes problems such as these. An NYC police officer feels negativity from the public, the media, the city and the hierarchy of the department. The typical PO plans on what they call "20 and out". As a result, the senior guy in a typical squad may have six years on the job (and is probably already burned out).
Throughout the years, when the city acquiesced to public's anti-police sentiment, they planted the seeds for this type of scandal. Seemingly irrelevant things have larger ramifications down the road.

2. The mayor and the city really blew the PR battle out of the gate. The procedure is not "stop and frisk". It's "stop and question and, if necessary, frisk".
A legal stop doesn't have to involve a pat down unless the PO can articulate fear or a specific threat. But the lazy city administration felt it necessary to speak down to goat level and say stop and frisk. In a way they kind of deserve the bad publicity for condescending in this way.

3. Actually, we don't have to suspect the numbers at all since you've provided them.
In 2012 there were 685,724 stops done by 35,000 cops. That's 19.5 stops per cop or about 1.5 stops per cop per month.
You're right though, it's not evenly divided since not all cops are doing stops.
And for some strange reason, most of the stops are in high crime precincts. Imagine.
 
Brooks said:
1. Then the judge and I are in agreement in that regard.
There's another issue that causes problems such as these. An NYC police officer feels negativity from the public, the media, the city and the hierarchy of the department. The typical PO plans on what they call "20 and out". As a result, the senior guy in a typical squad may have six years on the job (and is probably already burned out).
Throughout the years, when the city acquiesced to public's anti-police sentiment, they planted the seeds for this type of scandal. Seemingly irrelevant things have larger ramifications down the road.

2. The mayor and the city really blew the PR battle out of the gate. The procedure is not "stop and frisk". It's "stop and question and, if necessary, frisk".
A legal stop doesn't have to involve a pat down unless the PO can articulate fear or a specific threat. But the lazy city administration felt it necessary to speak down to goat level and say stop and frisk. In a way they kind of deserve the bad publicity for condescending in this way.

3. Actually, we don't have to suspect the numbers at all since you've provided them.
In 2012 there were 685,724 stops done by 35,000 cops. That's 19.5 stops per cop or about 1.5 stops per cop per month.
You're right though, it's not evenly divided since not all cops are doing stops.
And for some strange reason, most of the stops are in high crime precincts. Imagine.
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My brother retired from the NYPD as a seargent - he was gone after 18 with a line of duty injury. He spent his entire career in Harlem and the South Bronx, back in the 80s and 90s, and was both disillusioned and burned out. The political games that the administration and brass played pretty much killed his enthusiasm for the job. So much so that he warned me off joining the force after being accepted into the academy.

I grew up in the city, still work there, and honestly hate many of the changes I've seen in the last couple of decades.

I pretty much agree with everything else you've said.
 
Gaius46 said:
I pretty much agree with everything else you've said.
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In the end we probably actually agree on almost all of this but just differ in presentation.
Thank your brother.

I heard a great quote the other day from David Milch, former writer for NYPD Blue:
"Cops are asked to shield society from certain of its most fundamental contradictions".

I thought that was so profound, so succinct and almost elegant.

The stop and frisk issue is a perfect example - Society must decide between liberty and safety but lacks the courage to make the decision. So they ask the police to step into that void and suffer their ire no matter how they carry out their task. The police have only two options here - be blamed for crime increasing or be blamed for declaring open season on black youth. There is almost no gray area at all because society at large can't make the decision.
 
Brooks said:
1. Then the judge and I are in agreement in that regard.
There's another issue that causes problems such as these. An NYC police officer feels negativity from the public, the media, the city and the hierarchy of the department. The typical PO plans on what they call "20 and out". As a result, the senior guy in a typical squad may have six years on the job (and is probably already burned out).
Throughout the years, when the city acquiesced to public's anti-police sentiment, they planted the seeds for this type of scandal. Seemingly irrelevant things have larger ramifications down the road.

2. The mayor and the city really blew the PR battle out of the gate. The procedure is not "stop and frisk". It's "stop and question and, if necessary, frisk".
A legal stop doesn't have to involve a pat down unless the PO can articulate fear or a specific threat. But the lazy city administration felt it necessary to speak down to goat level and say stop and frisk. In a way they kind of deserve the bad publicity for condescending in this way.

3. Actually, we don't have to suspect the numbers at all since you've provided them.
In 2012 there were 685,724 stops done by 35,000 cops. That's 19.5 stops per cop or about 1.5 stops per cop per month.
You're right though, it's not evenly divided since not all cops are doing stops.
And for some strange reason, most of the stops are in high crime precincts. Imagine.
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Except in practice that articulated fear or suspicion is "it's a brown skinned person in a neighborhood where brown skinned people sometimes commit crimes."
 
Deuce said:
Except in practice that articulated fear or suspicion is "it's a brown skinned person in a neighborhood where brown skinned people sometimes commit crimes."
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Actually no. The articulated fear necessary to make the stop legal, if it should go to court, must be for a hidden weapon or object that could cause the officer harm. Things such as a bulge in the pants or waistline or small of the back or at the ankle or a furtive action just before contact, etc....

The law is very specific on this and your not knowing is the fault of the city, the media, activists and others who should have better explained this issue during the time it was in the news.
 
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