Monday, May 14, 2012

Daily Kos: Injustices of Stop and Frisk

Daily Kos: Injustices of Stop and Frisk:


Injustices of Stop and Frisk

is the title of this lead editorial in today's New York Times.  Perhaps some statistics are relevant:
according the the ACLU the number of stree stops have risen from about 97,000 in 2002, the year Mayor Bloomberg took office, to  685,724 in 2011, and with pace this year of even more.
We already know that there more stops made of black men than there are black men in the city.
The city has repeatedly argued that the program helps to keep guns off the street. But the N.Y.C.L.U.’s analysis found that the proportion of gun seizures to stops has fallen sharply — only 780 guns were confiscated last year, not much more than the 604 guns seized in 2003, when officers made 160,851 stops. Young black and Hispanic men continued to be stopped in disproportionate numbers. They are only 4.7 percent of the city’s population, yet these males, between the ages of 14 and 24, accounted for 41.6 percent of stops last year. More than half of all stops were conducted because the individual displayed “furtive movements” — which is so vague as to be meaningless.
IF you are Black or Hispanic, force is far more likely to be used, meaning you
are more likely to be slammed against walls or spread-eagled while officers go through their