Illegal Police Stops Have Risen Under Mayor Adams, Despite Court Mandate

Mayor Eric Adams promised police reforms, but a monitor found that officers, including the anti-gun units the mayor revived, continue to illegally stop, frisk and search people.

Two years after Mayor Eric Adams of New York ordered the Police Department to revive specialized units focused on getting firearms off the streets, the squads are stopping, frisking and searching too many people in violation of the law, according to a court-appointed monitor.

The monitor, Mylan Denerstein, filed a report in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday that found that the units, the Neighborhood Safety Teams and Public Safety Teams, were responsible for about 54 percent of the unlawful stops reported by the Police Department in the first half of 2023.

The department as a whole is still conducting too many stops, frisks and searches that violate the law, the monitor found, and the numbers are increasing. The monitor has highlighted the trend at least twice before, but it persists.

This week’s 54-page report comes over a decade after the department’s use of stop and frisk was deemed unconstitutional by a federal court and an independent monitor was appointed to oversee changes. But the department is still struggling to carry out court-mandated reforms, according to Ms. Denerstein. And since Mr. Adams, a former police captain, took office in 2022, critics have denounced what they call a return to aggressive policing tactics aimed at Black and Latino men.

“Full compliance with the reforms ordered by the court should be the utmost priority,” said Charles McLaurin, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Jennvine Wong, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said the lack of progress from the Police Department was “inexcusable” and showed “an utter lack of concern for the rights, dignity and humanity of people of color.”