[News] NYC stop-and-frisk data: Whites more likely to carry weapons and drugs

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  NYC stop-and-frisk data: Whites more likely to carry weapons and drugs


<http://rt.com/usa/stop-frisk-whites-drugs-weapons-667/>
Published time: May 23, 2013 03:56
http://rt.com/usa/stop-frisk-whites-drugs-weapons-667/

Data compiled by the New York Police Department as a result of the 
city's controversial focus on stop-and-frisk measures has shown that 
those suspects who were white were more often to be found in possession 
of weapons and drugs.

The analysis of 2012 statistics provided by the Public Advocate's office 
shows that the likelihood that an African American detained for search 
would be found in possession of a weapon was half that of a white person.

Specifically, the New York Police Department uncovered a weapon in one 
out of every 49 stops of white New Yorkers, while for Latinos a weapon 
was found for every 71 stops, and for African Americans that number was 
93 stops.

Meanwhile, the likelihood that a stop of an African American New Yorker 
would yield contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers 
stopped.

The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New 
Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 
stops of African Americans to uncover contraband.

Recent testimony by several New York police officers in connection to a 
lawsuit allege that the department regularly targets young black men and 
other minorities, which are judged by an arbitrary notion of "reasonable 
suspicion."

Further, the stop-and-frisk practice is allegedly tied to quotas by 
which superiors measure success rates over the city's police precincts.

In March, following evidence provided by a leaked recording, Officer 
Pedro Serrano, an 8-year veteran of the New York Police Department 
testified that during a meeting with Deputy Inspector Christopher 
McCormick he was told in no uncertain terms what individuals to focus 
his duties on.

/"I don't have any trouble telling you this: male blacks 14 to 20, 21,"/ 
said McCormick.

Serrano's testimony was presented as part of Floyd v. City of New York, 
in which four plaintiffs claim they were racially profiled by the NYPD. 
Four other police officers presented evidence for the prosecution.

That trial concluded this week following two months of testimony, while 
Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, who will provide a ruling within a few 
months, seemed to indicate heavy skepticism over the high error rate of 
New York police stops.

/"A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a 
gun and nobody has a gun,"/ said Judge Scheindlin on Monday during 
closing arguments in the trial.

/"So the point is: the suspicion turns out to be wrong in most of the 
cases,"/ she added.

This most recent analysis of the NYPD's statistics may well add more 
fuel to the fire over the stop-and-frisk controversy. The report by the 
Public Advocate's Office leaves little room to interpret its findings 
after surveying the 2012 data.

/"Despite the overall reduction in stops, the proportion involving black 
and Latino New Yorkers has remained unchanged. They continue to 
constitute 84 percent of all stops, despite comprising only 54 percent 
of the general population. And the innocence rates remain at the same 
level as 2011 -- at nearly 89 percent."/

Meanwhile, in a separate analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union 
of these same statistics, the group revealed that out of 532,911 
stop-and-frisk searches in 2012, just 729 guns were found.

On Monday, Judge Scheindlin referred to the /"high error rate"/ 
correlated with the stop-and-frisk practice, in which 88 per cent of 
stops yielded no evidence of criminality.

/"You reasonably suspect something and you're wrong 90 percent of the 
time,"/ said Scheindlin to a lawyer representing the city.

For his part, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken an unbending 
stance on city police's stop-and-frisk policy.

/"If you end street stops looking for guns, there will be more guns on 
the streets, and more people will be killed. It's that simple,"/ said 
Bloomberg during an April speech.

Mayor Bloomberg has often aimed his defense of the policy at the media, 
in particular the New York Times, for allegedly turning a blind eye to 
the victims of the city's gun violence
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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