NYC Police Stop-and-Frisk Policies Called ‘Degrading’
By Bob Van Voris - Mar 18, 2013
A lawyer for a citywide class of New Yorkers who claim they were targeted with racially biased, unconstitutional police stops asked a judge to order a halt to the practice.
David Floyd, Lalit Clarkson, Deon Dennis and David Ourlicht, four black men who claimed they were stopped and questioned or frisked by New York police without reasonable suspicion, began a trial today in Manhattan federal court of their claim that officers routinely violate the constitutional rights of black and Latino New Yorkers.
The police department has “laid siege to black and Latino neighborhoods in the last eight years,” Darius Charney, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization that filed the suit, argued in his opening statement today. He said being stopped and frisked isn’t a mere inconvenience but “a frightening and degrading experience and a serious deprivation of liberty.”
Floyd and the others claim the New York City Police Department has a widespread, illegal practice of stopping people in the street that disproportionately targets black and Latino New Yorkers. They claim the department fails to train officers in proper procedures and imposes quotas that encourage illegal stops.
The city denies that its policies are illegal.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-18/nyc-police-stop-and-frisk-policies-face-racial-bias-trial.html