The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 77/No. 4      February 4, 2013

 
Judge to NYPD: Some ‘stop and frisk’
is unconstitutional … but don’t stop yet
(front page)
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
NEW YORK—A federal judge ruled Jan. 8 that aspects of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk operations violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Under the practice, cops have targeted Blacks and Latinos, particularly young Black men, in vastly disproportionate numbers.

The suit was filed last March by 13 plaintiffs, all but two of whom are Black and reside in the Bronx, against the city’s “Operation Clean Halls” program—also known as the Trespass Affidavit Program—where private landlords authorize cops to patrol their buildings. Defendants are the City of New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and 17 city cops.

The case is one of three being heard by Judge Shira Scheindlin against the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices. It cites instances of police arresting individuals coming to visit friends in “Clean Halls” buildings on trespass charges and in some cases residents themselves who don’t have ID on them. Clean Halls, which has been in operation in some form since 1991, includes about 8,000 buildings citywide, 3,200 in the Bronx alone.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, Latino Justice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and lawyers with the Bronx Defenders filed the suit.

“This program is annoying, you can’t do anything. It should be stopped,” Lamar Rivera, 18, an African-American who lives in a “Clean Halls” building in the Morrisania section of South Bronx, told the Militant outside his apartment Jan. 13.

“Just last night my friend and I were stopped for going down the block to get some food,” he said. “A cops’ car slowed down to look at us and three cops hopped out to question us. I’ve got a lot of friends. When they come to visit, the cops say, ‘Why are you here?’ But they come to see us, not them.”

Edwin de Jesus, 42, a truck driver who lives in the same building complex, described being searched by the cops as he returned to his apartment. “When I asked, ‘Why are you stopping me?’ they said someone was buying drugs and ‘you look suspicious,’” de Jesus said. “When I’m home, I don’t hang around outside.”

Alex Quiero, 26, works at Fresh Direct and also lives in the Bronx. “I’ve been stopped by the police in the hallway or in front of my apartment door having a smoke,” he told the Militant. “I took the cops to court and won because they knocked down my door and it was a mistake. They meant to knock a neighbor’s door down.”

Judge Scheindlin wrote, “The City of New York and its agents displayed deliberate indifference toward the violation of the constitutional rights of hundreds and more likely thousands of individuals,” requiring them “to answer questions from an officer with the power to arrest them if they answered incorrectly.”

The decision continued, “Attempts at explanation are met with hostility; especially if the person is a young black man, he is frisked … the officers then detain the person in a police van.”

The judge made clear, however, that she is “not ordering the abolition or even a reduction of TAP [Trespass Affidavit Program], which appears to be a valuable way of using the NYPD’s resources to enhance … security.” The ruling “is directed squarely at a category of stops lacking reasonable suspicion.”

Scheindlin said the problem was “inaccurate training” by the NYPD. She ordered the police “to develop and adopt a formal written policy specifying the limited circumstances in which it is legally permissible to stop a person outside a TAP building on a suspicion of trespass.”

Judge Scheindlin issued a preliminary injunction ordering the NYPD to immediately “cease performing trespass stops outside TAP buildings in the Bronx without reasonable suspicion of trespass.”

Police Commissioner Kelly condemned the decision, telling the media it “unnecessarily interferes” with cop duties.

On Jan. 22, Judge Scheindlin temporarily reversed the order restricting “Clean Halls” searches, expressing agreement with city lawyers that it would impose an “undue burden” on the NYPD in training and administrative expenses.

Scheindlin said she recognized “a certain number of unconstitutional stops are likely to take place that would not have taken place in the absence of a stay,” reported the New York Daily News.

A broader lawsuit over stop-and-frisk is set to become the first of the three cases to go to trial March 11. This class-action case, filed by four Black men, accuses police of racial profiling in the searches, in which 87 percent were Black or Latino in 2011.

Judge Scheindlin said she would hold off on further rulings in the “Clean Halls” suit until after this trial.

A third case involving a challenge to a similar program in New York City public housing is still pending.

Rebecca Williamson contributed to this article.  
 
 
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