Kelly announces changes to ‘stop and frisk’ policies
By SALLY GOLDENBERG, LARRY CELONA and CHUCK BENNETT
Last Updated: 9:01 AM, May 18, 2012
Posted: 1:29 AM, May 18, 2012
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday announced changes to the department’s controversial “stop and frisk’’ program amid growing criticism that it unfairly targets blacks and Latinos.
The modifications, involving training, supervision and procedures, were spelled out in a City Council hearing, a letter to Speaker Christine Quinn, and a memo to the department.
Kelly’s City Hall appearance turned contentious when one councilman sarcastically praised stop-and-frisk as “effective’’ at being racist.
“It’s proven by your own statistics and either accidentally, incidentally or purposefully racist,” said Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn).
Warzer Jaff
PASSIONATE: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly testifies to the City Council yesterday about stop-and-frisk policies.
Kelly, who has described the policy as an effective “crime-fighting tool,’’ replied: “We are at less than one murder a day and you’re saying . . .”
Williams cut him off — and said the drop in the murder rate is “not because of stop-and-frisk.”
Kelly responded: “That’s your opinion.”
Councilwoman Melissa Mark Viberito (D-Manhattan) called the program “ineffective’’ and said it “criminalizes not just those young people [who are stopped] but the communities as a whole.’’
Kelly, who along with Mayor Bloomberg has long defended the policy, said, “New York is by far the safest city.’’
He later told reporters, “This is a very important tool for the Police Department . . . We’re keeping this city safe.”
The meeting came a day after a Manhattan federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit by four people that will allow up to 100,000 others who were stopped since 2005 to join.
The changes represent an effort “to increase public confidence in Police Department stop, question and frisk procedures,” Kelly wrote to Quinn.
The new initiative includes distributing a memo to every precinct warning that race can play no role in stops.
All stops must “be based on the standards required by the Fourth Amendment,” it reads, referring to the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches.
Supervisors will conduct random reviews, and cops who do stop-and-frisks will have to justify their actions.
Quinn said afterward Kelly didn’t go far enough.
“With these actions today, Commissioner Kelly and the NYPD are taking an important step forward; however, more must be done to significantly reduce the number of stops and to bridge the divide between the NYPD and the communities they serve,” she said.
Mayoral hopefuls Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu also said more has to be done.
Kelly, who has been rumored as a possible Republican mayoral candidate, and Bloomberg have argued that stop-and-frisks have saved 5,000 lives by taking guns off the street.
Cops stopped about 630,000 people last year — more than 90 percent black or Latino. Of those, about half were frisked and about 10 percent arrested.