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Lawsuit challenges NYPD stop-and-frisk policy

A civil liberties group filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the NYPD’s practice of stopping hundreds of thousands of people each year for questioning, saying it is racially biased.

The New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit lists New York Post reporter Leonardo Blair as the sole plaintiff, saying he was stopped and frisked by police officers as he walked from his car to his Bronx home last November.

He was taken to a police station, where officers expressed surprise that though he was black, he was not from “the projects,” the lawsuit said. Blair, 28, has a master’s degree from Columbia University.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan said the NYPD has stopped people in New York nearly 1 million times over the last two years. It said more than half of the people targeted were black, and some 90 percent were either black or Latino.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show 25 percent of the city’s population is black, 28 percent is Hispanic and 44 percent is white.

The lawsuit asks that the stop-and-frisk practice be declared unconstitutional and that Blair be awarded unspecified compensatory damages.

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Fire Dept. to Send Units First, Save the Questions for Later

A pilot program for Fire Department dispatchers in Queens was so successful in improving response times that it will be extended across the city next month, the department said on Tuesday.

Under the program, which started on Feb. 14, dispatchers were trained to spend less time on the phone confirming the location and nature of the emergency in order to expedite getting units to the scene.

The program requires dispatchers to continue to obtain information — including the cross street and a contact number from the person or persons calling in the emergency — while the fire units are en route, the department said in a statement. The responding units are then given radio updates in their trucks.

Under the previous system, the additional questions had to be asked before dispatchers could assign units to an emergency, the department said.

The program has been criticized by union officials, who have said that the department needed more trucks and personnel, not new rules for its dispatchers.

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