N.Y.P.D. Unwilling to Discipline Officers for Stop and Frisk, Report Says
The New York Times
The department’s discipline for illegal street detentions is lax at every level, according to an extraordinary review ordered by a federal judge.
At every level, the New York Police Department has failed to punish officers who have violated the rights of people stopped on the street, according to a new report — a failure that reaches all the way to the top of the force.
The report, the most comprehensive independent review of discipline since a landmark court decision in 2013, found that police commissioners during the past decade have routinely reduced discipline recommended for officers found to have wrongly stopped, questioned and frisked people, undermining efforts to curb unconstitutional abuses.
The report, by James Yates, a retired New York State judge, was ordered by Judge Analisa Torres of Manhattan federal court and made public on Monday.
Mr. Yates was assigned by the court to conduct a “granular, step-by-step analysis” of the department’s policies and discipline governing stop and frisk, a tactic of detaining people on the street that was being used disproportionately against Black and Latino New Yorkers.
The 503-page document that resulted paints a picture of an agency unwilling to impose discipline on an abusive practice that has prompted criticism that the department oppresses many New Yorkers.
The commissioners “demonstrated an inordinate willingness to excuse illegal stops, frisks and searches in the name of ‘good faith’ or ‘lack of malintention,’ relegating constitutional adherence to a lesser rung of discipline,” Mr. Yates writes.
