New York Stop-And-Frisk Ruled Un-Constitutional: Effective Crime Fighting Gone Too Far

On Monday, a federal judge in New York ruled that New York’s stop and frisk policy, as it was being applied, is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  It had gotten to the point where 83% of those stopped and frisked were black or latino (who only make up 50% of the New York population), and that after the frisk, 90% were let go with no evidence of criminal activity.  What were the police looking for? Guns, evidence of crime. What were they doing?  Likely, it was the extension of a decade and a half long, very effective policy of inundating high-crime neighborhoods with officers who asserted themselves.  New York murders are down to fifty-year lows. (Full Story, NY Times)  

In 1997, I drove a Dodge Dakota pickup truck with Arkansas plates across the George Washington Bridge into Washington Heights, in upper Manhattan and wound my way down to my friend’s neighborhood on the border with Spanish Harlem where I’d live the summer while working at a Midtown law firm.  The pickup bed was filled with my clothes and stereo and covered by a tarp.  I was two blocks due west from my destination in five o’clock traffic and encountered a police barricade manned by two officers in uniform.  Children played in the street on the other side, adults were out talking. The street was a model of peace and tranquility.  On the other end of the street was another barricade.  I was perplexed with the officer and he with me.  He asked where I was going.  I told him, “162^nd, between Broadway and St. Nick” and then pointed two blocks forward.  I asked him, “Do I need to go around for some reason?”  Traffic was heavy and it would have been a pain. He asked for my license, looked me over, said “No,” and watched me drive to where I was going (past the other barricade) and stop at my stated destination and ring the bell.  I looked back at the officers looking at me, and asked what had happened, pointing, and was told that a drug dealer lived on that block and there was a new police policy to inundate blocks with notorious criminals. The police would squeeze the balloon and keep the drug dealer in and keep his customers out until he moved or shut down.  If he moved, they’d follow him to that block.

And it’s worked.  It’s worked until the murders are way down and crime is way down and concentrated in areas that are predominately minority.  It’s worked and expanded until the pretext to stop and frisk got much lower than the original constitutional justification  (if a weapon was reasonably suspected, or a crime was reasonably believed to be imminent) until a “furtive” motion  (any odd movement)  or any bulge (wallet, cell phone) was a justification to stop someone in the fewer really bad neighborhoods. Until those left in those neighborhoods that are really bad are just about all black and latino, and are being unconstitutionally profiled on a regular basis.

The City says it will appeal.  Other cities have copied New York’s strategy – Chicago this summer being the biggest example and the most in need of a drop in murders, drug dealing and crime.  Whether they go to New York’s extreme, and how the courts ultimately decide the fate of New York’s policy is to be seen.