Communities United for Police Reform Reaction to de Blasio’s SOTC:

Communities United for Police Reform, a leading voice for reform at the NYPD, released the following statement in response to Mayor de Blasio’s State of the City:

“There were positive steps taken in 2014, including withdrawing Bloomberg-era legal challenges to the Community Safety Act and the federal stop-and-frisk lawsuit. However, the era of stop and frisk abuses and other discriminatory policing in our city is far from over. While reported stops are down, the racial disparity of those stops has remained.  We have a long way to go before there can be claims of the deep and substantive transformation in policing that our city needs.

"Discriminatory profiling and abusive policing is still all too common in our communities. The decrease in marijuana arrests does not address racial profiling. Replacing racially-biased arrests with racially-biased summonses comes with negative consequences, especially for low-income New Yorkers. And the Mayor and Commissioner must address the NYPD's systemic failure to discipline officers who brutalize New Yorkers in a meaningful and timely way in order for there to be real change and accountability at the NYPD," said Joo-Hyun Kang, Director of Communities United for Police Reform.