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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