Bias hasn’t ‘stopped’

Race gap persists in NYPD tactics: monitor

STOPS BY NYPD officers have plummeted in recent years, but racial disparities in who gets stopped still exist, according to a report filed Tuesday by a federal monitor overseeing the NYPD.

An in-depth analysis of three years worth of the department’s data on stop-and-frisk tactics found that overall stops declined dramatically — from 191,851 in 2013 to 22,563 in 2015.

Despite the radical decline in the number of stops, the relative share for different racial groups has remained the same. AfricanAmericans made up roughly 53% of the stops; Hispanics, 29%, and whites around 11% each year.

The analysis is the fifth such report filed by federal monitor Peter Zimroth, appointed after Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled in 2013 that the NYPD’s tactics violated the constitutional rights of blacks and Latinos.

“These facts do not themselves establish impermissible racial disparities because they do not speak to whether there were factors other than race that might have affected the numbers,” the report says.

While the crime rate of a particular area in 2013 appeared linked with the number of stops, that correlation was less obvious in 2015.

One method of analysis used in the 50-page report found that race continues to be a significant predictor of stop rates, even after controlling for higher crime rates in certain parts of the city.

African-Americans are more likely than whites to get searched, but less likely to have a weapon on them when frisked, the report found.

At the same time, cops are stopping less, but frisking more.

Over the same three years, the percentage of people stopped who were then detained and frisked increased, as did the percentage of times cops used force, made an arrest or discovered drugs or a gun.

Advocates say the numbers do nothing more than highlight the troubling racial disparity in who gets stopped by police in the city.

“(They) only serve to uphold what is far more than a tale, but a reality of two cities – New Yorkers have vastly different experiences with policing determined by their race,” Communities United for Police Reform said in response to the analysis.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed the class action suit that resulted in the appointment of a monitor, said the report showed steps were being taken in the right direction, but “the NYPD still has much work to do to end racial bias in its stop-and-frisk practices.”

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.