The Facts About Stop And Frisk

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  In 2011, NYPD officers conducted 685,724 street stops, a more than 600 percent increase since Mayor Bloomberg’s first year in office when officers conducted 97,000 stops. More than 4 million people have been stopped under this administration.
• The massive spike in street interrogations has done little to remove firearms from the streets, the ostensible reason behind the stop- and-frisk regime. Instead, the wholesale violation of civil rights has sown mistrust between police officers and the communities they are supposed to protect.
• Nine out of 10 people stopped are totally innocent, meaning they are neither arrested nor ticketed.
• No gun is retrieved in 99.9 percent of stops.
• 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.
• Though they account for only percent of the city’s population, black and Latino males between the ages of 14-24 accounted for percent 4.7% of population, and 41.6% of the stops in 2011. The number of stops of young black men exceeded the entire city population of young black men.

NYC Settles With Police Shooting Victim's Estate

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The city of New York has agreed to pay more than $7 million to settle a civil lawsuit stemming from the fatal 50-bullet police shooting of an unarmed man on his wedding day.

Feds Won't Bring Charges in NYPD Shooting Case

There will be no federal civil rights case in the New York City police shooting of Sean Bell. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had been reviewing the shooting of the 23-year-Bell, who was gunned down outside a Queens strip club on his wedding day in 2006.

Add Shem Walker to NYPD's Shameful List

By: Gregory P. Kane

What kind of dimwits run the New York Police Department anyway?



This is the town where four plainclothes cops fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, killing him when 19 hit their target. This is the same force whose officers burst into 57-year-old Alberta Spruill’s home six years ago, tossed in a concussion grenade and sent the poor woman into a fatal coronary. The suspect cops were looking for was already in police custody. This boo-boo cost New York City $1.6 million.



Then there was the case of Sean Bell. Some undercover cops cranked on Bell 50 times after he left a strip club. That’s quite a high price to pay for an evening of watching butt-naked hoochies.



But perhaps topping all of those cases in notoriety, egregiousness and downright stupidity is the case of Shem Walker. You’ve never heard of Walker? No reason you should. His death at the hands of an NYPD undercover cop in July was overshadowed by the arrest of Little Skippy Gates. Now that Gates and President Barack Obama have had their beer summit with Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department, maybe they can say a word or two about how New York undercover cops botched another one.

Add Shem Walker to NYPD's Shameful List....

Commentary: Surprise, Surprise -- Black and Brown Youths Unfairly Targeted by NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Policies

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The more I read the news coming out of the Big Apple these days, the more I’m beginning to believe that young black people there aren’t as much of a threat to the police as they are a mark for them.

First there was Sean Bell. The unarmed, 23-year-old died after police unleashed a storm of 50 bullets at him and his friends outside of a Jamaica, Queens nightclub in November 2006.

The three detectives, who recently were found not guilty on manslaughter charges stemming from that shooting, apparently thought that the only way to stop any potential for gunplay among young black men was to simply beat them to the punch; to kill them all first. And count on an acquittal later.

COMMENTARY....

NAACP EXPRESSES OUTRAGE: At unjust ruling in Sean Bell police shooting case

By Richard J. McIntire

The NAACP is expressing its outrage at the verdict issued earlier today by New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Cooperman in the police shooting death of Sean Bell.

The NAACP demands that the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division follow through on its reported monitoring of the case and launch a thorough investigation.

"For us, this case raises the overwhelming concern that New York City Police are often out of control," said New York State Conference NAACP President Hazel N. Dukes. "Where was the threat to the police? There was no need for so many shots to have been fired under the circumstances. The police need to protect and respect our community. The legal system is not living up to justice and fair play. To acquit on all charges is inconceivable and unacceptable. This verdict does not sit well with the NAACP."

The New York State Conference NAACP is planning a Day of Mourning and other reconciliation activities in wake of the verdict.

"This is the latest glaring example of court decisions that appear to endorse legally-sanctioned violence against African Americans," said NAACP Interim General Counsel Angela Ciccolo. "It is high time for all people to wake up and demand an end to senseless violence by police officers against African Americans."

As the court's review of this case tragically illustrates, the statutes that govern the use of deadly force by law enforcement entities are woefully inadequate. As such, the NAACP also calls on Congress to hold hearings on use of force policies and The Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act, as crafted by Michigan Rep. John Conyers.

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its more than half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities and monitors of equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

NY police cleared in 50-bullet wedding day shooting

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three New York City detectives were found not guilty on Friday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man killed in a hail of 50 bullets on his wedding day, prompting angry reactions and a federal review of the case.

A New York state judge cleared two police officers of manslaughter and other charges and a third of reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23. Bell was shot, along with two friends, after a bachelor party at a strip club in November 2006.

But federal authorities said they would consider civil rights charges in the case in a review to be conducted by the Justice Department, federal prosecutors and the FBI.

They will "take appropriate action if the evidence indicates a prosecutable violation of federal criminal civil rights statutes," the Justice Department said in a statement.

After the verdict, hundreds of demonstrators yelled angrily, and there was pushing and shoving in the crowd as police, reporters and spectators packed the sidewalk.

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, who has been highly critical of police and is influential in New York's black community, called for wider protests.

"They want us to act crazy so they would have an excuse to do more," Sharpton told the audience of his radio show. "We are going to be strategic. We are going to close the city down in a nonviolent effective way."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called for calm after the verdict, saying, "We don't expect violence or law-breaking, nor is there any place for it."

The case had generated outrage in New York's black community, though police said they did not expect violence because numerous demonstrations against the perceived police brutality had remained peaceful.

"It shows that there is no justice in America for the black man. This is telling us the cops can do whatever they want and get away with it," said B.M. Marcus, a community organizer.

APOLOGY

The acquitted officers gave brief statements thanking their friends and family.

"I'd like to say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy," said detective Marc Cooper, who had been charged only with reckless endangerment.

The other two detectives, Gescard Isnora and Mike Oliver, were charged with manslaughter.

All three defendants waived their right to a jury trial and decided to have the judge decide guilt or innocence. The defense lawyers said jurors in the borough of Queens were likely to be biased against the policemen due to the intense media coverage generated by the case.

State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Cooperman said the charges could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, noting that some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves from prior statements and may have had motivation to lie.

"At times the testimony just didn't make sense," Cooperman said.

After the verdict, loud sobs were heard in the courtroom.

The judge gave credibility to the detectives' statements that they believed they were in danger but also offered, "Questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums."

The eight-week trial centered on whether the detectives had reason to believe they faced imminent danger and whether they made it clear to Bell and the two survivors that they were police officers.

On the night of the shooting, Isnora, the undercover officer who fired first, followed Bell and his two friends to Bell's car believing they went to fetch a gun to settle a dispute at the club. He opened fire after being grazed by Bell's car as Bell attempted to drive away.

The other officers reached Bell's car after the initial confrontation and said they believed Isnora was being fired at from inside the vehicle.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Jackie Frank)

NYC SUBWAY SEARCHES LABELED RACIST: Anti-terrorism effort gives way to racial profiling.

Their original purpose was to combat potential terrorism. But there are now reports that random searches designed to catch terrorists have deteriorated into racial profiling of Blacks and Hispanics on New York City subways.

For example, a recent report in the New York Daily News found that 88 percent of those who are stopped and searched in the city's subways are Black or Latino, although they make up only 49 percent of subway riders.

In sharp contrast, white commuters, who constitute 36 percent of all subway riders, only make up 8 percent of those subjected to "stop-and-frisks."

One commentator has labeled the current stop frisks "a practice of blatant racism is nothing new for the New York Police Department. Above ground, the NYPD patrols oppressed communities like an occupation army, harassing and frisking people for simply walking down the block."

However, the police have counter argued their disproportionate presence in these communities is needed because of their higher crime rates.

The subway stop-and-frisks and "random" bag checks were first implemented in October 2005. At that time, the Bush administration fixed the city's "terror alert" to orange, the second highest level.

Politicians pushed the need to report "suspicious" persons. With thousands of signs reading "if you see something, say something," New Yorkers were instructed to join in the so-called "war on terror" and the culture of fear and mistrust which critics say it produces.