‘No discussion on stop-and-frisk’
MPD director says he’s not looking at controversial tactic
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Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings adamantly denied Tuesday that his department is exploring the “stop-and-frisk” tactic of policing in the city.
However, when asked about that tactic during a podcast with The Commercial Appeal last week, Rallings indicated it was an option to be considered. Stopand-frisk gives officers authority to stop people they consider suspicious and frisk them for weapons or contraband. It was popularized as a tool to combat crime in New York City.
“I have talked to New York on a number of occasions. So we’re going to look at all of it,” Rallings said during the podcast. “I think that New York also learned that there was a lot of scrutiny for stop-and-frisk, so we want to avoid the scrutiny.”
On Tuesday, however, Rallings made it clear that the tactic was not under consideration here.
“I think the jury has been out on stop-and-frisk, so why in the world would we even think about that?” Rallings said Tuesday at City Hall after a public safety committee meeting. “There is no discussion on stop-and-frisk, so whoever started that I think that it is maybe a little reckless.”
Keith Norman, pastor at First Baptist-Broad, said he heard about the possibility of that tactic late last week, then reached out to Rallings and Mayor Jim Strickland to express his opposition.
“My immediate reaction to it was that this was not a good strategy for us to build our crimereduction efforts around ... without building the complement (of officers) and providing additional training,” Norman said.
Norman said he doesn’t believe the tactic is effective at reducing crime.
“Whenever you have a majority population and a theory or even factual data that suggests
that that population contributes more to the crime, it is going to raise the number of contacts that take place with law enforcement and minorities of all color,” he said. “To arbitrarily stop people based on a profile is not an effective measure for fighting crime.”
In July, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission hired former New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and his consulting firm to help craft a new Operation Safe Community plan with a particular focus on combating violent crime.
Rallings said Tuesday that the Kelly hire doesn’t mean the department is going to adopt stop-and-frisk. During Kelly’s tenure in New York, the number of such encounters soared.
“That particular company is like many we have brought in,” Rallings said. “Again, I say let them finish their study. I applaud the crime commission for being concerned about crime in Memphis. But again, I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
He added, “I’ve been to Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York and we’ve talked every single time about crime in the United States and I will continue to talk to those police chiefs from across the country, but that does not mean we are going to blanketly adopt any particular tactic, especially something as controversial as stop-and-frisk.”
Major police departments from New York to Chicago have come under fire for using stop-and-frisk because critics said it unfairly targets minorities.
In 2013, a federal judge ruled that New York’s police department’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York and ordered a federal monitor to oversee the practice.