Report: NYPD Top Cop Candidate Used Stop-and-Frisk in LA

Former Los Angeles Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton, who is now a leading candidate to head the New York City Police Department under newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio, expanded the use of “stop and frisk” while in California, a practice de Blasio has vowed to end in New York.

The New York Daily News reports that in 2002, the year Bratton began his tenure at the LAPD, police stopped 587,200 suspicious pedestrians and drivers.

Six years later, with Bratton in office, The Daily News said, the number climbed to 875,204, marking a hike of nearly 50 percent, according to a May 2009 report from the Harvard Kennedy School.

And while critics, including de Blasio, complain that under New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, blacks and other minorities are targeted under stop-and-frisk laws, minorities were also being stopped by Bratton’s police officers under the same laws in Los Angeles.

When stop and frisk was at its peak under Bratton in 2008, 23 percent of all the people police stopped were black, even though African-Americans only represented about 9 percent of the city’s population at that time. Meanwhile, non-Hispanic whites, or about 30 percent of all Los Angeles residents, were stopped 15 percent of the time, but Hispanics, who represented nearly half the city’s population, were stopped about half the time.

Meanwhile, in New York in 2008, when civil rights groups launched their class action lawsuit against the city over the stops, 53 percent of those being stopped were African-Americans, who made up a quarter of the city’s population. Another 32 percent of those stopped were Hispanic and 11 percent were white. However, whites made up about 44 percent of the city’s population, while Hispanics represented 28 percent.

But unlike in New York, more stops resulted in arrests in Los Angeles. According to the New York Civil Liberties union, only about 6 percent of the NYPD stops ended up in arrests. However, the Harvard study said in Los Angeles, 30 percent of the stops brought an arrest.

“The pattern (in L.A.) suggests that police officers stopped people for good reasons and were willing to have the district attorney scrutinize those reasons,” the study said.

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Report: NYPD Top Cop Candidate Used Stop-and-Frisk in LA

New York City mayor vetoes bills to limit stop-and-frisk policy

New York Police Department officers stand in the Times Square in New York, April 25, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

By Noreen O’Donnell

NEW YORK | Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:03pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday vetoed two measures meant to curb the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy, setting up a likely showdown with the City Council.

Bloomberg called the bills dangerous and irresponsible and said they would make the city less safe.

One measure would create an independent inspector general to monitor the New York City Police Department. The other would expand the definition of racial profiling and allow people who believe they have been profiled to sue police in state court.

Bloomberg has defended the policy of stopping, questioning and frisking suspected wrongdoers to fight crime.

Opponents of stop-and-frisk, among them minority groups, civil libertarians and some of the Democratic mayoral candidates, have said police officers disproportionately target young black and Hispanic men.

Each of the measures, together called the Community Safety Act, passed the 51-member City Council with the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto.

City Council members who back the measures vowed to override Bloomberg’s vetoes.

“The Community Safety Act will help us make New York a place where everyone can walk the streets without fear of violence or discriminatory policing,” said Democratic council members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander. “We look forward to overturning Mayor Bloomberg’s veto and making this legislation law.”

Bloomberg argued that the first measure would create not an inspector general but an official who would rival the police commissioner on law enforcement policy and strategy.

“The consequences would be chaotic, dangerous, and even deadly for our police officers and for our city,” he wrote. The second, he said, would unleash an avalanche of lawsuits against the police department.

Communities United for Police Reform, an organization that advocates an end to the stop-and-frisk policy, said it was disappointed by the vetoes, which it called “misguided.”

“New York City must outlaw racial profiling and all discriminatory profiling,” it said in a statement.

One of the Democratic mayoral candidates, Bill de Blasio, said Bloomberg was turning a blind eye to racial profiling.

“I believe we need a real change, and encourage City Council members to stand by their votes and override the Mayor’s veto,” he said in a statement. “Our young men cannot afford for us to waver in the face of intimidation from City Hall.”

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Toni Reinhold)

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Reuters: Politics

New York City mayor vetoes bills to limit stop-and-frisk policy

New York City mayor vetoes bills to limit stop-and-frisk policy

New York Police Department officers stand in the Times Square in New York, April 25, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

By Noreen O’Donnell

NEW YORK | Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:03pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday vetoed two measures meant to curb the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy, setting up a likely showdown with the City Council.

Bloomberg called the bills dangerous and irresponsible and said they would make the city less safe.

One measure would create an independent inspector general to monitor the New York City Police Department. The other would expand the definition of racial profiling and allow people who believe they have been profiled to sue police in state court.

Bloomberg has defended the policy of stopping, questioning and frisking suspected wrongdoers to fight crime.

Opponents of stop-and-frisk, among them minority groups, civil libertarians and some of the Democratic mayoral candidates, have said police officers disproportionately target young black and Hispanic men.

Each of the measures, together called the Community Safety Act, passed the 51-member City Council with the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto.

City Council members who back the measures vowed to override Bloomberg’s vetoes.

“The Community Safety Act will help us make New York a place where everyone can walk the streets without fear of violence or discriminatory policing,” said Democratic council members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander. “We look forward to overturning Mayor Bloomberg’s veto and making this legislation law.”

Bloomberg argued that the first measure would create not an inspector general but an official who would rival the police commissioner on law enforcement policy and strategy.

“The consequences would be chaotic, dangerous, and even deadly for our police officers and for our city,” he wrote. The second, he said, would unleash an avalanche of lawsuits against the police department.

Communities United for Police Reform, an organization that advocates an end to the stop-and-frisk policy, said it was disappointed by the vetoes, which it called “misguided.”

“New York City must outlaw racial profiling and all discriminatory profiling,” it said in a statement.

One of the Democratic mayoral candidates, Bill de Blasio, said Bloomberg was turning a blind eye to racial profiling.

“I believe we need a real change, and encourage City Council members to stand by their votes and override the Mayor’s veto,” he said in a statement. “Our young men cannot afford for us to waver in the face of intimidation from City Hall.”

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Toni Reinhold)

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Reuters: Politics

New York City mayor vetoes bills to limit stop-and-frisk policy