Filter recently published a piece titled For NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Abuses, Discipline Is “Close to Nonexistent” about a recent Federal report detailing rampant non-compliance with a 2013 ruling that the NYPD's longstanding stop-and-frisk policies were unconstitutional. Not only are New York police still engaging in the practice but the report also found that officers are rarely disciplined when found to be in violation of citizens' rights with regard to the stops.

"Stop-and-frisk refers to detaining and searching someone simply because an officer decides they look suspicious. The NYPD has historically used stop-and-frisk to target young Black and Brown men. In 2013, a federal judge ruled that this violated the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment protection against racially discriminatory policing. Oversight measures for the practice, including the independent monitor, were ordered in an effort to prevent officers from abusing their power.


Stop-and-frisk peaked in 2011, at more than 685,000 people detained. Of those, 605,328—88 percent—were ultimately not cited or arrested. The practice declined in the years following the court ruling, reaching a record low of 8,947 in 2021. But since Mayor Eric Adams (D) took office in 2022, NYC has seen a resurgence of stop-and-frisk, with 16,971 incidents reported in 2023."

...

"Yung-Mi Lee, a legal director at Brooklyn Defender Services, told Filter this owes to Adams—a former NYPD officer himself—reviving the department’s “anti-crime” unit. The plainclothes unit was implicated in killing Eric Garner in 2014, and disbanded in 2020 in the wake of the protests over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

“You can’t create a specialized unit that engages in dragnet policing where they stop everyone, violate their constitutional rights, and then justify their actions by saying, ‘We found a gun,’” Lee said. “It’s probably a gun in thousands of illegal searches. These encounters are humiliating and invasive.”

She said that today, there’s still no real way to hold officers accountable for misconduct. Filing a complaint with the CCRB is often too intimidating or inaccessible.

“I’ve seen many people who have done so and are constantly targeted by police officers,” Lee said. “Then they have to go through the investigation process. If there is a recommendation for discipline by the CCRB, the commissioner routinely overrules that. Even though misconduct was found by the CCRB, the commissioner will ignore it and the officer is not held accountable.”"

You can read the full article here.

You can read the recent Federal report here.