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Ray Kelly Calls Stop-And-Frisk Criticism "Pandering"
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Feb 27, 2012
Modified Feb 27, 2012
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Feb 27, 2012
Modified Feb 27, 2012
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Shawn Portuguez wouldn't make it to his 3 p.m. trim at a barbershop in the Lower East Side because he was in handcuffs. "They said I crossed the street three times, so that's why they stopped me," Portuguez said as he stood waiting for the two NYPD officers to check his information on Thursday. "I just left my apartment for the first time today." Police took Portuguez away after he was told he had an outstanding warrant, but a DCPI spokesman says no arrest record exists for the encounter. Asked why they chose to stop Portuguez out of the flow of people milling around Rivington Street, an officer said, "We had a murder around here recently, so we're being extra vigilant."
87% of the 684,330 people stopped by the NYPD last year under the department's stop-and-frisk program were black or Latino, a statistic that has Manhattan Borough President and likely mayoral candidate Scott Stringer calling for the NYPD to take a different approach. "We question whether this policy works…and we question why we're just targeting a certain segment of our city," Stringer said yesterday at a rally to end stop-and-frisk in its current form.
Via NYCLU
To the Bloomberg administration, there is no question as to whether or not stopping more than 4 million New Yorkers since 2004 has worked. "5k fewer murders this decade than last—huge declines in previously high crime neighborhoods," deputy mayor Howard Wolfson tweeted yesterday.
When Capital New York reporter Azi Paybarah, who was covering Stringer's rally, asked Wolfson on Twitter, "is it possible to reduce the # of stop-and-frisks AND reduce crime, in nyc?" Wolfson replied, "bottom line is that strategies over the last decade have worked."
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly called Stringer's comments "pandering" in an interview with Rep. Peter King this morning, pointing again to a 50% drop in murders over the course of the "Bloomberg decade" to 5,430 killed. Referring to those numbers, Kelly said, "Of course the vast majority of those lives…are people of color, young men of color," which appears to allude as to why the NYPD stops a disproportionate amount of blacks and Latinos.
"You can say, 'our policy is justified because this is where crime happens,' " Kirsten John Foy, aide to the Public Advocate said in a press conference earlier this month. "But you can't say this isn't about race and then say most of 'them' commit the crimes." Councilman Jumaane Williams had a more succinct word for that sort of rationalization: "That's bullshit."
It's possible that Portuguez received a summons for whatever transgression was on his record, a DCPI representative told us, but he wouldn't be able to access that information. When the police run a suspect's information, they learn if the suspect has an outstanding warrant or not: the reason isn't specified. "He could owe money on a ticket or he could be a murderer," the officer who detained Portuguez said. "Or they could have turned him loose at the 7th Precinct," the DCPI rep noted. "There's just no record that he was arrested on that occasion."
"All of us believe that there is a constitutional way to do stop and frisk," Stringer said yesterday. "None of us are suggesting that the police never interact with the community…There's constitutional ways to do it, and there has to be a standard."
Tagged
City Council
civil liberties
jumaane williams
nypd
Ray Kelly
scott stringer
stop and frisk
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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