Running head: STOP AND FRISK 1

Stop and Frisk

The Controversy Surrounding the N.Y.P.D.
John P. Ortton
Molloy College















STOP AND FRISK 2

Abstract
In recent years the amount of disproportionate stop and frisks of young minority men by the
N.Y.P.D. has been questioned. As a criminal justice major and hopefully a future officer of the
law, the author feels this is a serious issue in New York City and the country. With recent high
profile cases of police abuse in the news, this paper looks at what the N.Y.P.D. has been doing to
correct this action and what we can do as a society to insure our safety and the safety of the
police who are sworn to protect us. The author reviews the laws and what is being done to help
stop this controversy.
















STOP AND FRISK 3
During the last several years the amount of traffic stops by the New York Police
Department has been questioned and police officers have been accused of racial profiling. The
N.Y.P.D., the former police commissioner and the former mayor of New York have been
criticized for the disproportionate stop-and-frisk numbers on young men of color. Stop-and-frisks
are an intrusion of the individual, even if the person is only detained for a few minutes. One of
the Supreme Courts most important and controversial constitutional criminal procedure
decisions, Terry v. Ohio, deals with the techniques of unreasonable searches and seizures
under the Fourth Amendments protection. The question is whether the N.Y.P.D. has been
adhering to the constitutional search and seizure requirements. Many minorities feel that police,
without probable cause, are targeting them. Some people wonder if there has been an increase in
crime, when there are fewer stops by police in high crime areas. Has the N.Y.P.D. violated the
rights of minorities under the Fourth Amendment, or as Terry v. Ohio states, did the officer have
reason to believe, in light of his experience that criminal activity will take place and police
have been justified in stopping huge numbers of people on the streets.
New Yorks stop-and-frisk law was passed in 1964 when Nelson Rockefeller was
governor. The Court of Appeals of New York clarified the law by putting in the four-level of
degree of suspicion framework that is still used today, People v. Debour (1976). The first level
is to request information, and then the officer needs to find suspicion that criminal activity is
present, the third level is stop-and-frisk based on reasonable suspicion and the fourth level is the
power to arrest based on probable cause. Zeidman (2013) doesnt feel that the Supreme Court
meant that the N.Y.P. D. could authorize 685,000 stops a year, which is what happened in 2011.
He questioned why if there were so many stops, that the criminal courts have not been involved
with huge amounts of suppression hearings with police officers being asked to testify why the

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stop was conducted. The stops peaked in 2011 and began to decline even before Mayor deBlasio
took office. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union report in 2013, stops were down
64% in 2012 and 72% in 2013. In Stop and Frisk City, Fallon cites that of those stopped in
New York City, 89% were innocent, 53% were black, 32% were Latinos and 10% were white,
suggesting that some incidents of stop-and-frisk may be racially motivated (2013). According to
Stephanie Ward, (2014), In the new, gentrified post-9/11 New York City, gone are the days
when a visitors trip to Times Square might include aggressive panhandling, a mugging or an
uncomfortable exchange with a prostitute. Certainly on my trips to New York recently, I have
not felt threatened or unsafe compared to the way the city was portrayed years ago. One of the
achievements of the three term former Mayor Bloomberg was decreasing crime in New York
City. Since 1990, murders have dropped 85.2 percent, rapes by more than half, burglaries are
down 85.7 percent and robberies are down 80 percent (Ward).
Since 1999, when Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man was killed by police officers in the
Bronx, stop-and-frisks in New York City have gotten a lot of attention. The N.Y.P.D. has hired
outside consulting firms to look at racial bias and they have tried to incorporate some of those
recommendations for improvements into the department. In the Harvard Law Review article
Floyd v. City of New York case (2011), Judge Scheindlin stated that hundreds of thousands of
New Yorkers will never bring suit to vindicate their rights, even if they feel they were racially
profiled (2013). Scheindlin was also disturbed by the citys closing argument in the case that
doubted that any court injunction could ever really guarantee that suspicionless stops would
never occur. It would be difficult to prove if a stop was completely justified if the police officer
felt there was probable cause. The Harvard article reports that 57% of white New Yorkers
approved of the stop-and-frisk program as of August 2012, while 25% of black and 53% of

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Latinos supported it. Many from this group believe that aggressive policing strategies help stop
crime in the minority neighborhoods.
The N.Y.P.D. are trained at the academy for six months with emphasis on conducting
stop-and-frisks and how to fill out a report worksheet, which is reviewed by a supervisor and
entered into a log at the precinct. Civil lawsuits by groups against the department have mandated
the creation of a racial profiling policy and training of officers on the law of reasonable
suspicion. This extra training and supervision of officers has hopefully led to a change in quotas
and the culture of the department. Mayor deBlasio believes in ending the overuse of stop-and-
frisk that has unfairly targeted young African-American and Latino men. Although stops have
decreased in the last few years, young black and Latino men are still disproportionately stopped.
Former Mayor Bloomberg had credited the stop-and-frisk practice for the sharp reduction in
murders and the removal of illegal guns from the streets. Besides training by the police
department on racial profiling, the police have been ordered to begin a pilot program of using
body cameras, so what is happening on the streets can be seen by supervisors and reviewed for
training purposes. The N.Y.P.D. announced in September that 60 officers would begin wearing
cameras as part of the pilot program. This policy may help those officers who, even after training
and education may still have a tendency towards targeting minorities unjustly.
Today, stop and frisks as New York City knew it is over. This is due to public outrage by
minorities, political pressure and legal challenges. A street mural that the class viewed was
painted on the wall in Harlem on 138
th
Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and was
completed in August 2013. It depicts stop and frisk and is called, Know Your Rights Mural. It
took six months to complete and it is a lesson to the community on stop and frisk. This work of
art shows the strength of community involvement for causes in an effort to change policies that

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they feel have targeted minorities. It was a powerful mural. The new police commissioner,
William Bratton, has been quoted in the news as saying, "We will all work hard to identify why
is it that so many in this city do not feel good about this department that has done so much to
make them safe what has it been about our activities that have made so many alienated?"
With Brattons policy of omnipresence, the police have a visual presence in New York and with
each threat of terrorism, such as ISIS, Bratton has increased that presence. The police are there,
they just do not confront anyone until they believe there could be the threat of trouble. The
Friday that we went to East Harlem, the Jewish holiday, I noticed that there were more police at
the train station and near the subways. As a white male, I have never been detained by the
N.Y.P.D. and so I feel safer with a more visual presence by police officers. Hopefully, with at
least a minimal level of objective justification for making a stop and retraining by the police
department, the proper balance between safety and liberty will be reached in New York and our
constitutional rights will not be compromised and our safety will not be jeopardized.











References
Civil Procedure - Class Actions Southern District of New York Certifies Class Action Against
City Police for Suspicionless Stops and Frisks of Blacks and Latinos. -- Floyd v. City of New
York, 82 Fed. R. Serv. 3d (West) 833 (S.D.N.Y. 2012). (2013). Harvard Law Review,
126(3), 826-833.
Fallon, K. (2013). Stop and Frisk City. Brooklyn Law Review, 79(1), 321-345.
People v. DeBour, 40 N.Y. 2d.210-N.Y. Court of Appeals (1976) Retrieved from Lexis Nexis
Academic Database.
Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968) Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic Database.
Ward, S. F. (2014, 03). Stopping the stop and frisk. ABA Journal, 100, 38-45. Retrieved
from http://search.proquest.com
Zeidman, S. (2013). Whither the criminal court: Confronting stops-and-frisks. Albany Law
Review, 76(2), 1187-1209.