Boot to Stop-and-Frisk Judge Won’t Kill Rulings
Though Scheindlin did not stop the program, the remedies she laid out aimed at ensuring that the officers had a reasonable basis to make stops and frisk those detainees for weapons or drugs.
Between 2004 and 2012, police made 4.4 million stops, and 80 percent of these stops were of blacks or Hispanics, Scheindlin noted.
The judge said the department had “adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data.”
Going forward, under Scheindlin’s order, police would have to wear cameras during stop-and-frisk procedures, while a federal monitor oversaw reforms within the department.
These reforms still have not gotten off the ground, however, because the 2nd Circuit temporarily stayed Scheindlin’s ruling on Oct. 31 and booted her from the case for the appearance of bias in her press statements and remarks from the bench.
New York City in turn filed two motions with the federal appeals court to turn that stay into an order vacating the opinions Scheindlin handed down on Aug. 12 and Feb. 14.
More: Courthouse News Service