The Future of Stop and Frisk: Panel Expresses Disappointment in Recent U.S. Court of Appeals Ruling
From left: Chauniqua Young, Robert Gangi, and Kevin Powell at the Future of Stop and Frisk event in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.
On Tuesday, November 12, five panelists spoke on the future of stop and frisk in New York City at a community meeting held at Lafayette Presbyterian Church in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn. The panelists included:
Letitia James, current councilwoman and recently elected public advocate
Robert Gangi, director and founder of Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP)
Kevin Powell, president and co-founder of BK Nation
Chauniqua Young, attorney on the class action suit, Floyd v. City of New York, and member of the Center for Constitutional Rights
Joan Gibbs, lead counsel, Center for Law and Social Justice
A hot topic of the night was the recent removal of Judge Shira Scheindlin from the class action suit that deemed NYPD practices of stop and frisk unconstitutional. Find the FRISK article on the issue here.
James expressed her disappointment of the US Second Circuit Court of Appeal ruling that took Judge Scheindlin off the case.
“We really need to stand up for Judge Scheindlin,” said James. “All that she did was consistent with the law.”
But Young, whose work focuses on challenging unconstitutional rights and racial discrimination, emphasized that the trial is not merely an example of the legal ramifications surrounding stop and frisk. It illuminates a bigger, ongoing problem.
“It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. What we’d like to do is fight for the judge’s order, designed to once and for all remedy the NYPD’s racial profiling,” said Young.
The members of the panel shared personal stories of when they were stopped and frisked or knew someone who was.
James spoke out about her “nephew, neighbor, and several friends” who were stopped and frisked without reasonable suspicion.
Powell says he harbors negative feelings towards police officers because of a traumatic experience he faced being stopped, frisked, and assaulted on the street for no apparent reason.
“When I was 14 or 15 not only was I stopped by a police officer, I was punched,” said Powell.
Now, he avoids interactions with the police whenever possible. Powell recalled a recent experience when, while driving around in an unfamiliar city, he became lost. Instead of approaching a nearby police officer to ask for directions, Powell, afraid the officer might give him a hard time just for being a black male, chose to stay lost.
The meeting also raised the controversial issue of quotas or “productivity goals,” as it is suspected that the NYPD stops and cites a certain number of people per month. If they don’t reach the quota, repercussions follow, discussed by law enforcement officials in the video produced by Thenation.com and recently posted on FRISK, which can be found here.
“They [the NYPD] do have a quota system,” said Gangi, adding, “sometimes they will be demoted, sometimes they will be fired,” referring to professional woes that ensue if the police don’t reach a set number of summonses.
In response to quotas and stop and frisk in New York City, Powell said he believes it is about a power dynamic rooted in racism.
“I think that we should stop using the term ‘racial profiling’ and start calling it racism,” said Powell. “My hope is that we finally have some people in power who realize that the city is for all people.”
Story by Lisa Malykhina and Aleks Mencel
