Suns Of Re-Awakening

Recently elected Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio was elected by an overwhelming margin of over 70% of the electorate due primarily to one of his promises of curtailing the abuses of the Stop and Frisk Program. Over the course of the Stop and Frisk Program, 85% of the victims have been African and Latino youth. This attack against youth of color was not due to overzealousness on the part of a few bad police officers if you will, but in fact were in direct response to a policy from superior officers, a clear policy of police containment and directly attacking basic democratic rights. In the aftermath of the election in a curious move, de Blasio selected as Police Commissioner none other than William Bratton, one of the creators of the Stop and Frisk program.

 

On August 12 Judge Shira Scheindlin's of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rendered a decision documenting how the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities by routinely stopping "blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white”. The judge reviewed statistics on 4.4 million police stops made between January 2004 and June 2012, and said a police forms database indicated that at least 200,000 were made without reasonable suspicion.

 

Stop and Frisk originated from the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Terry v. Ohio. In this case a Cleveland, Ohio police stopped three subjects suspected of criminal activity and after patting them down (frisking them), found two handguns and subsequently arrested them. The stop and the frisk were held to be lawful, and have guided the actions of police officers for over forty years. Stop and Frisk is a policy that will be discussed for implementation in both large and small cities across the country. The August 25, 2013 edition of the Frederick News carried an editorial by a former sheriff of Frederick County, describing Stop and Frisk as an important tool in law enforcement. Conspicuously missing from the entire editorial was the fact that Stop and Frisk is used primarily against African and “Hispanic” people, a point which led to the decision by Judge Scheindlin. Also missing was reference that the traditional Fourth Amendment standard of probable cause does not need to be met to stop and frisk a person; only "reasonable suspicion" is required. "Reasonable suspicion" is a lower standard that makes it much easier for police to stop individuals. This practice was designed to target a specific group of people with complete disregard for the Constitution.

 

The judge’s decision is further indication that whenever the prosecutor or judge has an opportunity to use discretion in the “justice system”, whether to decide whom to arrest, whether to impose a sentence or what sentence to impose, it is used to the detriment of racial minorities. The basis for Chief Justice Earl Warren rendering his decision in Terry v Ohio 45 years ago was that the benefits to law enforcement were great and the intrusion from a stop-and-frisk was minimal. The statistics generated from 2004 to 2012 proves the exact opposite. The specifics of Stop and Frisk should be known to everyone, especially if you are a part of one of those ethnic groups being targeted because it could impact on how Frederick will be policed and what tools they will be allowed to use. The proceeding local elections were flooded with candidates for public office and with one exception they all ran a campaign supporting public safety and Stop and Frisk is supposedly a tool used for public safety. The writer of the editorial is correct when stating that the use of Stop and Frisk does not contribute to the decrease in crime. The crime rate, with the exception of white collar crime i.e. bankers, Wall Street, lender etc., is on the decline both locally and nationally yet there is always a cry for more police. In light of this one would think that the question should not be a request for more police but should perhaps be a re-deployment from the African communities to were real crime is occurring.

 

The decision by Judge Scheindlin calls for the New York Police Department to reform itself with some oversight by a federal court. Seems to me to be the classic case of the fox watching the hen house, but we shall see. It should be noted that the judge didn’t outlaw Stop and Frisk she ruled that it must be “reformed” with the appointment of a monitor directly accountable to her only to review changes made by the New York Police Department, and the changes are to be submitted to the court. The court says that Stop and Frisk is a legitimate tactic if used appropriately and applied legally. One of the problems with the tactic is that it is used against people not involved in any suspicious activity; it’s random, discriminatory, undiscriminating by targeting people that meet a profile. The judge’s ruling calls for remedial action much like what presently goes on such as community / police meetings where no real community input is allowed, otherwise just window dressing.

 

In a July 10, 2010 meeting with then Gov. David Patterson, State Senator Eric Adams and NY City councilmen Hakeem Jeffries, all African and representing largely African constituents, were part of a meeting that included N.Y. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Sen. Adams had travelled to Albany to lend support to a bill that would prohibit the NYPD from maintaining a database that would include the personal information of individuals stopped by the police but released without a charge or summons. In discussing the bill, which ultimately passed, Adams said he raised the issue of police stops disproportionately targeting young African American and Latino men. “Ray Kelly stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police," Adams testified. "How else would we get rid of guns," Adams said Kelly asked him. Adams told the court he was stunned by the commissioner's claim and immediately expressed his concerns. "I was amazed," Adams testified. "I told him that was illegal."According to Adams, also at the meeting were a former New York City council member, Hakeem Jeffries, who is now a US congressman, and another New York state senator, Martin J Golden. Adams said he was "shocked" the commissioner would describe an effort to instill fear among African American and Latino youth in the company of three elected African American politicians – referring to himself, Jeffries and Golden. Incidentally, Ray Kelly is at the top of Obama’s list of persons to head the Department of Homeland Security.In 52 percent of those 4.4 million stops, the person stopped was black; in 31 percent the person was Hispanic; and in 10 percent the person was white. Weapons were seized in 1 percent of the stops of blacks; 1.1 percent of the stops of Hispanics; and 1.4 percent of the stops of whites. Contraband other than weapons was seized in 1.8 percent of the stops of blacks; 1.7 percent of the stops of Hispanics; and 2.3 percent of the stops of whites. Stop and Frisk was used against the Jewish people of Nazi Germany; is what the people of Palestine undergo on a daily basis; it was an integral part of the apartheid system in South Africa and used by the French in Algeria in the late 50’s early 60’s. Stop and Frisk is terrorism plain and simple; it is an integral part of the state imposed violence inside of African communities, a violence that has resulted in the impoverishment of, the imprisonment of, the death of more African people than any other entity since Africans were forced upon the shore of North America.