Blacks, Latinos Still Bear Brunt Of Stop-And-Frisk, Report Shows

NEW YORK — Racial disparities continue to mar the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices even though their use has sharply declined under Mayor Bill de Blasio, civil-rights advocates say in a new report.

More than eight in every 10 people stopped by cops between 2014 and 2017 were black and Latino, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union analysis of NYPD data released Thursday. Just 11 percent were white — barely more than the rate of 9 percent at the height of stop-and-frisk's use in 2011, the report says.

And while cops are only supposed to frisk people suspected of having a weapon, none was found in 93.5 percent of the frisks police performed in that four-year period, according to the report.

"New York City is safer than ever, but we have made no meaningful progress in reducing the racial disparities in who is stopped by police on the street," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement.

The statistics suggest the racial impact of the controversial policy has continued to bedeveil a mayor who criticized stop-and-frisk disparities in his first campaign. A federal court ruled the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices unconstitutional and ordered reforms in 2013, the year before de Blasio took office.

Disparities have persisted even though the number of stops has plummeted since de Blasio took office. Just 11,629 were reported in 2017, a 98 percent drop from more than 685,000 in 2011 under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg, the report shows.

The NYPD noted that the drop in stops has accompanied historic lows in crime. The city saw fewer than 300 murders in 2017 and 2018, a level not previously reached since the early 1950s.

The decrease "reflects the deliberate shift in NYPD strategic focus over the past several years to precise, surgical targeting of crime and criminals," the Police Department said in a statement. "The result is fewer stops, and fewer arrests and summonses — all while continuing to drive crime to record low levels."

The disparity in stops is especially pronounced among young black and Latino men — 14-to-24-year-olds in those ethnic groups accounted for nearly 38 percent of reported stops despite making up just about 5 percent of the city's population, the report shows.

Black and Latino New Yorkers were also more likely to be frisked by cops — but less likely to be found with a weapon than white people, the report found.

Cops can cite a wide range of reasons for stopping someone but can only frisk the person if there's reason to believe he or she has a weapon, according to the NYCLU. Police performed frisks in about two thirds of all reported stops from 2014 to 2017, the report says.

Some 68 percent of black and Latino people who were stopped got frisked and a weapon was found on just 6 percent of those who were, the NYCLU found. By contrast, more than 54 percent of white people stopped were frisked — and a weapon was found on 9 percent of those who were, according to the report.

There was also a geographic disparity in stops. Queens's 106th Precinct saw the most with nearly 5,200 stops between 2014 and 2017, the report shows, while Greenwich Village and SoHo's 6th Precinct had the fewest, aside from Central Park, with just 224.

The NYCLU worries the actual number of stops may be higher because cops are not documenting many of them. But the NYPD said its officers and supervisors "continue to refine tactics to ensure that every stop is appropriately documented and meets constitutional standards."

The department also said it is working to give cops a one-day training on the policy, enhancing the Police Academy recruit course that started two years ago, and strengthening auditing and doing follow-up to "ensure accurate reporting."

"Taken together, these changes not only make New York City the safest big city in America, but also one with dramatically fewer confrontational encounters between police and the people we serve," the NYPD said.