Wednesday night, at an event billed as a town hall to discuss the concerns of African Americans, Republican nominee Donald Trump called for nationally implementing the police practice known as “stop and frisk.”
“One of the things I’d do,” Trump told Sean Hannity in a pre-taped program. “Is I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically.”
The practice of stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York in 2013 after it was found to have disproportionately targeted minorities and stopped people without reasonable suspicion. The actions violated both the 4th and the 14th amendments.
The federal class action lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Executive Director of the Center, Vince Warren, explains how the practice was a “failure.”
“The court found the practice of “stop and frisk” as practiced by the NYPD was a ten year walking constitutional violation in which over 87 percent of the people that the police stopped were African American and Latino but 90 percent of the people stopped, didn’t even get a ticket, did nothing wrong. They were stopping innocent people on the basis of race.”
At the time, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed the declining crime rate was due to the proactive approach by the New York Police Department of “stop and frisk.” However, Warren and his team noted that wasn’t the case.
“What we found out was that the crime rate had been declining before stop and frisk. Number two. After our lawsuit and after the police department stopped doing stop and frisk, they almost ceased that practice at the end of lawsuit, the crime rate still went down. Stop and frisk had nothing to do with controlling crime rates.”
Check out our video for more on the practice of “stop and frisk” in New York City and see Warren’s full interview here.
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