6Frisk / reward
Stop ‘saved’ youth, parents write
A GRATEFUL couple thanked the NYPD for a stop-and-frisk arrest five years ago that they said put their wayward son on the straight-and-narrow.
The anonymous letter — signed “A Mother and Father” — credited cops on the Upper East Side for giving the unnamed young man a much-needed wake-up call.
The 19th Precinct shared the letter, dated Jan. 9, on Twitter on Monday.
“We believe that the key to turning our son’s life around, the thing that saved his life, was the arrest. We will always feel gratitude to you,” the parents said.
In the letter, the couple said their son had been kicked out of high school for drugs.
“Everything we tried, failed: talking, withholding money, therapists,” they wrote. “Then he started to sell drugs to young people, which was worse than harming himself.”
A 19th Precinct officer stopped and frisked the young man about five years ago — and arrested him, the parents said.
“He spent a night in jail. Facing felony counts, he decided to go into rehab to impress the judge,” they said.
Initially he resisted making a real change — but as he went through the rehab process, he began to cooperate.
“He’s been clean ever since. He graduated college in December and is now working as a paid intern. He starts graduate school this week,” the parents said.
The couple said they wished they could thank the NYPD in person but were concerned about their son’s privacy.
At the 19th Precinct, the praise was well-received.
“We may seem like the bad guys to some people, but it’s letters like this that make our work worth it & truly life changing,” the precinct tweeted.
Police were forced to overhaul their use of the controversial stopand-frisk tactic when a federal judge in 2013 ruled the policy was “indirect racial profiling” and ordered broad reforms, including an oversight monitor.
The ruling was in response to hotly-contested discrimination lawsuit against the NYPD that argued the policy violated the civil rights of blacks and Hispanics, who were disproportionately subjected to the stops.
Under Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, stop-and-frisks reached an all-time high of 685,328 in 2011. That year, the 75th Precinct in East New York had the most, with 31,100 stops — 53% for blacks, 34% for Latinos and 9% for whites. The 19th Precinct had only 4,183 stops, with 33% for blacks, 32% for Latinos and 24% for whites.
The city’s crime rate has remained low even after the NYPD deemphasized the tactic.