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Stop and Frisk: Judge lets NYPD resume “suspicion-less” stops
Policewoman frisking man. PHOTO/Hill Street Studios
A federal judge let the New York Police Department on Tuesday temporarily resume stop-and-frisk stops she believes are unconstitutional while she decides what permanent remedies are necessary to prevent illegal stops at thousands of privately owned buildings.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan lifted immediate implementation of the order she issued earlier this month concerning a program aimed at decreasing city crime.
The judge earlier this month found that the city acted unconstitutionally in making trespass stops without reasonable suspicion at more than 3,000 Bronx buildings participating in the program, a finding that the city is challenging in a federal appeals court. Scheindlin said the need for the appeal will be mooted by her order lifting the ban.
(More: Judge rules stop and frisk policy unconstitutional)
Scheindlin said she believes her original ruling was correct when she found police sometimes stopped people who were merely entering or exiting buildings and not acting suspicious, but the city had shown it would be expensive to immediately implement an order that could be reversed in a complicated area of law.
“There is more than enough proof that a large number of people have been improperly stopped as a result of NYPD practices. These facts warrant an injunction,” she wrote Tuesday.
However, she noted that “any unnecessary administrative costs imposed on the NYPD will be in some sense irreversible,” boosting the possibility of irreparable harm to the department.
A trial in March is set to decide the fate of a lawsuit more broadly challenging the city’s stop-and-frisk practices. That lawsuit, filed in 2008, challenges whether minorities are stopped at an unconstitutionally disproportionate rate, and whether there is a failure to monitor, supervise, and discipline officers who fail to meet the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk reporting guidelines. The judge refused a request by the city to delay that trial.
