Trial to Decide Legality of Pedestrian Checks

[patric]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130317/us-stop-and-frisk/?utm_hp_ref=homepage&ir=homepage


NEW YORK — The New York Police Department's practice of stopping, questioning and frisking people on the street is facing its biggest legal challenge this week with a federal civil rights trial on whether the tactic unfairly targets minorities.

Police have made about 5 million stops of New Yorkers in the past decade, mostly black and Hispanic men. The trial, set to begin Monday, will include testimony from a dozen people who say they were targeted because of their race and from police whistleblowers who say they were forced into making slipshod stops by bosses who were too focused on numbers.

[Ed W]

Here's a good resource from those folks who really look out for our constitutional rights:

http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bustcard_eng_20100630.pdf

[Vashta Nerada]

http://www.leaderherald.com/page/content.detail/id/300803/NYC-cop--Payback-likely-after-stop-frisk-testimony.html?isap=1&nav=5040

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City police officer testified Wednesday that he's already been labeled a rat and expects more retaliation from colleagues for testifying at a civil trial that the department routinely enforces quotas on arrests and other enforcement action and punishes those who do not achieve the artificial goals.
Officer Pedro Serrano told a federal judge in Manhattan that his colleagues in the Bronx already dumped out his locker and stuck rodent stickers on the outside, implying he is a rat for testifying.

"I fear that they're going to try and set me up and get me fired," he said.
Serrano, 43, was speaking publicly for the first time at the trial, which is challenging how the New York Police Department makes some street stops. His testimony was given to show a culture within the nation's largest department that revolves more around numbers and less around actual policing.

Lawyers for the four men who sued say officers unfairly target minorities under the controversial tactic known as stop and frisk, sometimes because of pressure to make illegal quotas. Attorneys for the city say the department doesn't profile — officers go where the crime is, and the crime is overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods. Police officials have said that they do not issue quotas but set some performance goals for officers.

Serrano, who wore a suit Wednesday but was in police uniform earlier in the week, said he has been protesting within the department for six years about quotas for arrests, summonses, and stop, question and frisk reports each officer should achieve per month.
"I've been verbally telling my supervisors this is wrong," he said. "They say, 'This is the way it is; it's been done this way forever.' You can't fight. It's a losing battle."

Serrano was the second whistleblower to testify Wednesday in the case. Officer Adhyl Polanco, whose story had already been made public in media reports, said police brass were not concerned with whether patrol officers were saving lives or helping people; they were focused on one thing: numbers.

Both officers said if they didn't get the 20 summonses, one arrest and five street stops per month while working patrol, they'd face poor evaluations, shift changes and no overtime. Serrano said the push to get arrests came right after the academy and continued. He said he's been punished for not having enough arrests.

"They tell you: 'I need a specific number,'" Serrano said of his superiors.
On Tuesday, the second day of the trial that is expected to last weeks, city lawmakers announced that they had reached an agreement to install an inspector general for the NYPD — an issue raised last year amid mass demonstrations against stop and frisk and a series of stories by The Associated Press that detailed police monitoring of Muslims. A vote was expected in the coming weeks. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would veto the proposal.

NYPD Quotas Are Alleged In 'Frisk' Trial
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323415304578370934217921310.html

A suspended New York City police officer testified in federal court Tuesday that his supervisors pushed quotas for stop-and-frisk searches and arrests, part of the second day of testimony in a trial challenging the policy.

The officer, Adhyl Polanco, was a four-year veteran of the New York Police Department in 2009 when supervisors in the Bronx's 41st Precinct "came very hard with the quotas—they call it productivity," he testified.

The class-action lawsuit that triggered the trial argues, in part, that the use of quotas violates state law. In opening statements Monday, city attorney Heidi Grossman dismissed quota allegations as "a sideshow" and said the NYPD "measures performance" to ensure officers "are not being rewarded for inactivity or laziness."

In his testimony Tuesday, Officer Polanco described the initial quota requirements as "20 and one," meaning that officers were expected to issue 20 summonses each month and make at least one arrest.
By fall 2009, he said, supervisors added a monthly minimum of five stop-and-frisk encounters to the list.
Those numbers were "nonnegotiable," Mr. Polanco testified, with supervisors warning that anyone failing to meet the goals would "become a Pizza Hut delivery man.'"
Punishments could include denial of overtime assignments and requests for days off, schedule changes or a move to another precinct. "They can make your life miserable," Officer Polanco said.
Police have undertaken some five million stop-and-frisk encounters since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002. More than 85% of those stops have targeted black and Latino New Yorkers, according to statistics cited at the trial, and only about 12% resulted in criminal charges.

The legal challenge to the city's stop-and-frisk policy before Judge Shira Scheindlin also argues that the tactic violates constitutional prohibitions on illegal search and seizures and protections against racial discrimination.

In his testimony, Officer Polanco has described the pressure he felt to keep pace with monthly requirements for stops, tickets and arrests.
When lagging behind those benchmarks, he said supervisors directed him to street locations where other officers had detained people. His instructions, he said, were to make arrests or issue tickets for offenses he hadn't observed.
At other times, Officer Polanco said, he was directed to fill out stop-and-frisk forms documenting stops he didn't make.

As a last measure, Officer Polanco described in his testimony a task called "driving the sergeant," in which he was allegedly assigned to drive the streets with a supervisor. He said he would perform stop-and-frisk searches and even make arrests searches on people selected by the supervisor.
"You have absolutely no discretion," he said.

The federal trial isn't the first time Officer Polanco has raised public allegations about the NYPD's policies. He contacted media organizations in late or early March 2010 and released his precinct recordings, which became the basis of news reports.
At the time, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said employees of the department, like other organizations, "are provided productivity goals and they are expected to work."
Officer Polanco was suspended from the police force later that year following a shoving incident with a supervisor. He has since been reinstated and but placed on modified assignment, without a gun or badge.

He currently works with a surveillance-camera monitoring unit in the Bronx, and his departmental disciplinary case for the shoving incident remains pending.
Jonathan Moore, one of the plaintiff's attorneys, said that Officer Polanco will testify about that incident Wednesday, which he contends came in retaliation to his whistle blowing.

[cannon_fodder]

Ped Checks and safety checkpoints (DUI checkpoints) are bs IMHO.  Guilty until innocent in the eyes of the law.

[guido911]

Here's a good resource from those folks who really look out for our constitutional rights:

http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bustcard_eng_20100630.pdf

Oh bullcrap Ed. They are spot pickers and agenda driven, just like every other interest group.

[Ed W]

Oh bullcrap Ed. They are spot pickers and agenda driven, just like every other interest group.

Wow. I'm surprised it took you that long to respond, Guido. You're off your game.

How does this compare to a Terry stop?  If a cop stops me for no apparent reason, am I obliged to hand over my driver's license as an ID? 

And please don't tell me that the Republican party is out to defend my rights.  They will, of course, for those who make tons of money and aren't identifiably ethnic.  (Yeah, it's a cheap shot.  Couldn't resist, though I know that Prince Rebus(sp?) is trying to change things.)  For now, all we have is the ACLU.

[Breadburner]

If he demands to see your I.D...Yes you are......Or face whatever the consequences might be....

[patric]

If a cop stops me for no apparent reason, am I obliged to hand over my driver's license as an ID? 

You would be as obliged to show ID as a cop is obliged to tell you why he's demanding to see it.

...at least that's how the law is written...