Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer among those blasting NYPD for providing ‘muddled’ data on cop stops
Outcry comes in response to NYCLU report listing nabes where controversial practice is widely used
By Simone Weichselbaum / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 4:00 AM
Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 4:00 AM
Bryan Smith for New York Daily News
Latino and African-American students and workers and supporters with local elected officials march over the Brooklyn Bridge and rally in City Hall Park while protesting NYPD "stop and risk" policies.
City pols are blasting the NYPD for keeping what they call muddled data about its controversial street interrogation practices.
New Yorkers have a right to know where and why cops are doing the most stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking, the officials said, urging police to release easy-to-follow details that would help to explain the hundreds of thousands of stops made each year.
“The data doesn’t back up the rhyme or reason to random stop and frisk,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose borough counted one precinct on the NYCLU list.
The outcry came after the New York Civil Liberties Union released a report this week listing the top 10 precincts using the method — the first of a series of soon-to-be released highlights about the practice.
The 23rd Precinct in East Harlem, for example, ranked sixth citywide with 17,498 stops, edging higher-crime hoods like Central Harlem, which placed 18th out of the city’s 76 precincts with 12,859 stops.
“We want the stops to be constitutional,” Stringer said. “We don’t want one group being targeted.”
Police brass have defended their strategy as a tool to get weapons off the streets and prevent crime in violent areas.
But the NYCLU breakdown showed that stops were more prevalent in some gentrifying communities; more stops were recorded in Jackson Heights (115th precinct) and Williamsburg (90th precinct) in 2011 than some other nabes that are more notorious for crime.
Before the NYCLU released the data crunch, civil liberties advocates complained that the NYPD’s Stop, Question, and Frisk Database on the NYPD website required the use of advanced statistical software in order to understand the policing trends.
Supporters of the practice argue that people should focus on how stops keep bad guys at bay.
“Stop and frisk is effective for getting weapons off the street. It is not as effective for stopping car break-ins,” said City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Astoria). “I just hear people complaining, who are paid to complain. I don’t hear law-abiding citizens complaining.”
Asked why less violent areas were being targeted, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said that “stops reduce crime and save lives.”
Still, other officials said, police should develop a more comprehensive approach to crime prevention than arbitrarily stopping thousands of minority men.
“Doesn’t matter where they are, blacks and Latinos are going to get stopped,” said City Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-East Flatbush).
Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-East Harlem) and her Youth Violence Task Force came up with alternatives to the policy in a November report, which she said went ignored by the NYPD.
“There has to be reform,” Mark-Viverito said, suggesting that former gang members work with cops to dissuade young hoodlums from committing crimes. “My community wants to be part of the conversation. We just want to be heard.”
BY SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS