According to recent testimony from State Senator Eric Adams (D-N.Y.), New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Raymond Kelly views the controversial police policy known as “stop and frisk” as a way to “instill fear” in young African American and Latino residents. The NYPD has conducted nearly 5 million stop and frisk searches on residents since 2002, 84 percent of whom are Blacks and Latinos.
The announcement made by Adams, who retired from the NYPD in 2006 after rising to the rank of captain during a 22-year career, came during federal testimony on Monday. Adams, a vocal opponent of stop and frisk policies allowing the NYPD to stop, question and search any resident, said Kelly described his views on stop and frisk during a July 2010 meeting in the office of then-governor David Patterson.
“[Kelly] stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them, that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police,” Adams testified.
“How else would we get rid of guns?” Adams said Kelly asked him.
Under stop and frisk policies, police are empowered to stop and search anyone who they suspect has committed a crime or is in the process of breaking the law.
Interviews with New York City residents who have been subject to the practice reveal that police, at times, use aggressive tactics when conducting searches. “These interviews provide evidence of how deeply this practice impacts individuals and they document widespread civil and human rights abuses, including illegal profiling, improper arrests, inappropriate touching, sexual harassment humiliation and violence at the hands of police officers,” the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) wrote in a 2012 report titled, Stop and Frisk The Human Impact.
Kelly allegedly revealed the information to Adams who had traveled to Albany for a meeting July 2010 with the governor to give his support for a bill prohibiting the NYPD from maintaining a database that would include the personal information of individuals stopped by the police but released without a charge or summons.
Adams’ testimony adds to growing public condemnation of NYPD police tactics that many believe unjustly target racial minority groups. In hearings last month, two serving NYPD officers testified that the department maintains a fixed quota system to ensure officers make a certain number of stops, arrests and summons. Both men secretly recorded roll-call meetings and conversations with supervisors which purport to show the existence of such a system.
One officer secretly recorded a conversation with his supervisor in which he was told to target “male blacks” ages “14 to 21.”
Kelly’s views also underscore the long-held opposition voiced by minority and civil rights groups.
“Stops and frisks are steeped in the ever-present threat of police violence. Several interviewees reported that stops often result in excessive force by police, describing instances when officers slapped them, threw them up against walls or onto the ground, beat them up, used a Taser on them or otherwise hurt them physically,” CCR reports.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) New York chapter has stood against Stop and Frisk, claiming that the practice infringes upon constitutionally protected rights that bar “unreasonable searches and seizures” by police.
Using NYPD statistics, the ACLU reports that the vast majority of those stopped by police have been young African-American and Latino men. Since 2002, the NYPD has conducted nearly 5 million stops on people, most of whom are then released after police fail to find any weapons or drugs.
Nearly nine out of 10 New Yorkers stopped and frisked have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports.
New Yorkers remain mostly divided on the issue of stop and frisk based upon race. According to an August 2012 New York Times poll, 55 percent of Whites described the use of the tactic as acceptable, while 56 percent of Blacks called it excessive. Among Hispanics, 48 percent said it was acceptable and 44 percent said it was excessive.