It is a simple concept: We are all New Yorkers and, as such, we all deserve to be equally respected by authorities.
It is a simple concept, yet those who are supposed to “protect and serve” every city resident have had a very tough time grasping it.
The increasing number of New Yorkers who oppose stop-and-frisk — and its obstinate defense by Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly — is the most blatant example of this disconnect.
As every city resident knows, stop-and-frisk is a New York Police Department tactic that, for all practical purposes, criminalizes black and Latino youth for no other reason than their color, their accent or their place of residence.
“Stop-and-frisk makes youth of color feel like we are criminals and not welcome in our own city,” said Alfredo Carrasquillo of the Brooklyn-based VOCAL-NY, a group active in opposing the street interrogations.
During the Bloomberg administration, the NYPD has stopped more than 4 million people, 85% of them black or Latino, and nearly 90% of those stops failed to result in a summons or arrest.
“The city’s stop-and-frisk practice fails to make us safer, but does succeed in the daily humiliation of law-abiding New Yorkers, most of them young people of color,” said Héctor Figueroa, the president of 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union. “We must stop this destructive, discriminatory practice now.”
A majority of city voters — 53% — agree with Figueroa, according to a poll released last week by the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.
It was among Hispanics that stop-and-frisk rejection grew the most. Fed up with what they believe to be unwarranted police harassment, the number of Latino voters who oppose the practice rose from 45% in August to 64% in November.
“No one should be abused and harassed by the police simply because they are Latino or because of where they live,” said Javier H. Valdés, co-executive director of Make the Road New York.
The rejection of this abusive police tactic really started to grow in October, following a hearing on the Community Safety Act, a legislative package of police reforms pending in the City Council.
There were also public hearings on stop-and-frisk practices in Brooklyn and Queens, later in the month.
Brooklyn Council members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander are the main sponsors of the package, which comprises four bills. It has the support of a majority of Council members.
One of the bills protects against unlawful searches; a second expands protections against profiling based on age, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, housing status, language and disability, in addition to race, religion or ethnicity.
The third bill requires NYPD officers to identify themselves and explain their actions, and the fourth establishes an NYPD inspector-general to provide independent oversight.
“As New Yorkers learn the truth about how Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly’s discriminatory stop-and-frisk policing practices affect their neighbors and fail to reduce gun violence, they continue to reject them,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, a spokeswoman for Communities United for Police Reform, a coalition of community advocacy groups that is spearheading the campaign against discriminatory police practices.
“New York needs meaningful reforms,” she added. “And the City Council must use its power to deliver them by swiftly passing the Community Safety Act.”
The sooner the better.