Police Mostly Stop Innocent People In East Flatbush, Data Shows

EAST FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — More innocent people are targeted for police stops in East Flatbush than in any other Brooklyn neighborhood, a new report from the New York Civil Liberties Union found.

Ninety percent of people stopped by 67th precinct police were not guilty of a crime and 97 percent were black or latino, according to the report released Thursday.

The East Flatbush precinct was one of five in New York City found to have the highest number of stop-and-frisks, with 2,011 reported between 2014 to 2017, according to the NYCLU report.

While police stops have fallen to a record-low since Mayor Bill de Blasio entered office in 2014, the NYCLU's data show that police still disproportionately stop and frisk black and Latino men.

"Our report shows that racial disparities continue to be a stubborn problem, that most stops are of innocent people, and that the police routinely and improperly are frisking New Yorkers," said Christopher Dunn, NYCLU's legal director and a co-author of the report.

"We remain concerned that the number of actual stops is far larger because officers are failing to document many stops

An NYPD spokesperson emphasized that reported stop-and-frisks have dramatically decreased, from 688,000 reported stops in 2011 to 12,000 in 2018.

"The NYPD has overwhelmingly reduced the use of stop-question-and-frisk," the spokesperson said. "This decrease reflects the deliberate shift in NYPD strategic focus over the past several years to precise, surgical targeting of crime and criminals."

The NYPD also introduced a one-day training course on stop-and-frisk policy for police officers and supervisors, the spokesperson said.