The lawsuit was filed on behalf of New York Post reporter Leonardo Blair, who was subjected to the NYPD's "stop-and-frisk program." He told his story in this video:
Ironically, Blair's employer has an editorial in today's paper that refers to the NYCLU, New York Times and Rev. Al Sharpton as "anti-cop radicals" and, in a way, arguing against their very own employee's case.
Nor is there any evidence of bias. The data "show a relationship between the percentage of individuals stopped and the descriptions of suspects," an NYPD spokesman, Assistant Chief Michael Collins, explained. In other words, the cops stop people who match the descriptions (race included) reported for criminals.
Of course, no one should be surprised by the allegations of racism - or even wacky suggestions for police, in essence, to disband as a result of the Bell verdict.
You would think that the right-wing views would halt for awhile, especially when this happens to one of their own reporters. But that was not the case. Listen to Blair's story and remember this: He is a graduate of Columbia University and is the crime reporter for Rupert Murdoch's New York City rag.
For the record, here are some numbers put together by the NYCLU regarding this:
- In 2007, the NYPD stopped about 469,000 New Yorkers - almost 1,300 people every day. Eighty-eight percent were completely innocent. Though they make up only a quarter of the City's population, more than half of those stopped were black. Another 30 percent were Latino. Though whites make up more than 35 percent of New York City's population, they were only 11 percent of those stopped. In 2006 and 2007, blacks and Latinos were the target of about 90 percent of the nearly one million stop-and-frisk encounters.
This practice should stop. Some apparently see this as proactive policing but when there is such a huge racial and ethnic divide in who the NYPD "stops" and "frisks", that's where the problem exists.
