State to probe NYPD’S policy
ALBANY — True to his word, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is putting the NYPD’S controversial stop-and-frisk tactic in his cross hairs.
Schneiderman’s investigators are reviewing NYPD stop-and-frisk data and weighing whether to issue a formal report — setting up a potential battle with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg, the Daily News has learned.
Documents obtained by The News show Schneiderman has met at least twice in recent months with top staff to discuss the NYPD program, which reached a record high 685,724 stops in 2011 and has led to criticism of racial bias.
Schneiderman pledged in his 2010 campaign for attorney general to crack down on “unjustified stop-and-frisk practices.”
His spokesman declined to com- ment. But a source with knowledge of the review said a “working group” inside the attorney general’s office is analyzing records of stops, including racial breakdowns of those who were subjected to the practice. A decision has not been made to proceed with a more expansive analysis, similar to one released by then-attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 1999.
“They’re still very early in the process,” the source said. “They’re looking at publicly available data and trying to determine whether an updated report is warranted.”
The Spitzer report concluded blacks and Latinos were being stopped and sometimes frisked in disproportionate numbers. Even in precincts that were, at the time, 90% white, more than half of those stopped were black or Latinos.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne also declined to comment, but police brass have long argued stop-and-frisk is an important crimefighting tool. Kelly spoke about the program in general at an unrelated event Tuesday, defending it as a “lifesaving tactic.” He noted there have been 51% fewer murders in the past 10 years than in the prior decade.
“We know what we’re doing is saving lives,” Kelly declared.
A recent report by the New York Civil Liberties Union found that of the record number of stops in 2011, 88% did not end in a criminal charge or issuance of a summons. In 2010, the state Legislature blocked the NYPD from keeping a computer database of personal information of people who were stopped but not accused of wrongdoing.
“There is no question that stopand-frisk is the source of massive civil liberties violations and affronts to human dignities day in and day out,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman.