In response to an anti stop and frisk ruling handed down by a federal judge, the City of New York has claimed that the courts were unfair and that there is legal basis to their policy of randomly searching New Yorkers — far more frequently minorities.
In the federal stop and frisk ruling called “blistering” by the New York Times , Judge Shira Scheindlin “found that on hundreds of thousands of occasions since 2004, the police have systematically stopped innocent people in the street without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing” and “adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling” officially sanctioned by the NYPD.
The entire stop and frisk ruling was a scathing indictment of a long-term nightmare for minorities in New York City, and Judge Scheindlin described not only a higher proportion of black and Hispanic people stopped, but a far larger tendency to have a benign item such as a wallet or phone trigger a search.
The federal judge noted that “blacks are likely targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of objectively founded suspicion than whites,” despite the fact that white individuals were more likely to carry weapons or contraband.
The New York City Mayor’s office hit back in a series of tweets, repeating its refrain that the end justifies the means even if the end isn’t fully proven to correlate with the means:
We are on pace for another record low number of shootings and homicides this year, because our officers follow the law and follow the crime.
— NYC Mayor’s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) August 12, 2013
Without a trace of irony, the NYC Mayor’s Office complained that despite countless statistics proving otherwise, the officers’ intentions were not considered — almost as if they were treated as a single block of individuals likely to engage in predetermined illegal actions:
Mayor: The judge conveyed a disturbing disregard for the good intentions of our officers, who form the most diverse police dept in the U.S.
— NYC Mayor’s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) August 12, 2013
Finally, the city tweeted that disallowing stop and frisk was unfair and depriving NYPD officers of going about their business in a manner in which they see fit:
Throughout the case, we didn’t think we were getting a fair trial. This decision confirms that, and we’ll present evidence to Appeals Court.
— NYC Mayor’s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) August 12, 2013
In the stop and frisk federal ruling, the judge said she was “not ordering an end to the practice,” outlining changes that “[protect] the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much needed police protection.”
