The RAND subpoena is the latest step in a class-action lawsuit, Floyd et al. v City of New York, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) against the NYPD this January. The suit aims to stop what CCR considers the police department’s systematic racial profiling in the city’s African-American neighborhoods – an approach the plaintiffs claim can lead to tragedies such as the Sean Bell shootings. The RAND subpoena is needed to gain access to stop and frisk information compiled by the NYPD, which the attorneys will use to try to prove a pattern of racial profiling – and then force changes to these practices through the courts.
“Stop and frisk stops are just the tip of iceberg. The public hears about the police shootings, but don’t hear about the day-to-day interactions and that is what we want to focus on, is the day-to-day interaction,” said Kamau Karl Franklin, the lead attorney.
The RAND Corporation, an independent think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif., was hired by the NYPD to analyze stop and frisk data, which totaled about 500,000 incidents, said RAND spokesman Warren Robak. The New York Civil Liberties Union contends that the NYPD also has a database of almost one million people who were stopped and frisked, and NYCLU associate legal director Christoper Dunn says 90 percent of those in database never were charged with a crime. The NYCLU is now suing the NYPD in state courts to gain access to the data.
The NYPD's stance is that the practice of “stop and frisk” is essential to reducing crime in the city. According to the department's numbers, the crime rate is down nearly 10 percent between this month and May 2006, and went down 25 percent between 2001 and 2007. The big shift towards these methods began in the 1990s, when the department sought to implement effective community policing strategies. After listening to local leaders, it became apparent to department leaders that residents were extremely concerned about low-level neighborhood crime such as broken windows, graffiti and public drunkenness. Police worked to reduce such incidents by handing out summonses to petty criminals.
Soon after, police added other crime reduction strategies, which employ stop and frisk practices, such as “Getting Guns off the Streets,” “Reclaiming Public Spaces” and most recently “Operation Impact,” which flooded high-crime areas with police rookies. Police spokesmen repeatedly have maintained that crime remained low partly because of the effectiveness of these methods.
Many African Americans dismiss that assessment, and outrage remains high partly due to two recent high-profile incidents. One was the highest-ranking black police officer, Chief Doug Ziegler, being questioned by two white officers while sitting in his department-issued car, according to press reports. The second concerns Leonardo Blair, a black New York Post reporter who was stopped by police while walking from his car to his aunt’s house in the Bronx. This month the NYCLU sued the city in federal court on Blair's behalf questioning the legality of the department’s stop and frisk policies as well as the database.
