Stop and Frisk

Bob Herbert of NYTimes : End the NYPD policy of ''stop and frisk''

The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has published an opinion essay, in which Mr. Herbert asks Gov. David Patterson to sign into law a bill that would end the New York City Police Department's unconstitutional practise of making a list of innocent citizens who have been ''stoped and frisked'' by cops.

". . . Allowing the police to continue accumulating these permanent files on the innocent, an abomination in and of itself, would also encourage the cops to continue their Jim Crow stop-and-frisk policy, which has led to the systematic harassment and humiliation of young black and Latino residents who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

This racist policy needs to stop — and stop now . . . ."

"The Police Department has compounded this outrage by loading information on these innocent New Yorkers into its permanent database of stop-and-frisk encounters. The database is one of the first stops for cops investigating actual crimes. Thus, these innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police, not because of anything they’ve done wrong but primarily because of their ethnic background . . . ."

Separately, The New York Times published information that indicated that, "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg 'will urge the governor to veto the bill,' a spokesman, Jason Post, said."

Remember, this is the same mayor, who ordered the NYPD to spy on and illegally arrest and detain thousands of protesters to the 2004 Republican National Convention. When it comes to civil liberties and civil rights, our mayor is incapable of knowing what is the right thing to do.