My Positions on NYPD Stop & Frisk Program

I began reviewing the NYPD Stop & Frisk Data published by the NYCLU at their web site:
http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data

I was curious to see if there were any racial bias and to what degree.  I discovered that there is horrendous racial bias in the selection of people to be stopped & frisked.  In the last ten years (2003 to 2012) the NYPD has done stop & frisks on the equivalent of 105% of the black population of New York City.  During the same time they have done stop & frisks on the equivalent of only 11% of the white population.  If 2013 is an average year, the NYPD will have done stop & frisks on the equivalent of 60% of the total population of new York City by the end of June, 2013.  That is to say, on the equivalent of 6 in every 10 of all New Yorkers!  I find this to be horrendous!  Under Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly New York City has become a police state, particularly if you are black.

I wrote letters to the NYCLU & my local politicians and included a copy of my study.  This was during the trial on stop & frisk earlier this year.  The politicians have taken action, and passed new laws, in part because of the court trial, in part because of the NYCLU and perhaps in part because of my study.  I provided a copy of my study to Glenn Beck & his BlazeTV team, and the NYPD Stop & Frisk Program was discussed on Real News on The Blaze.

There's been a lot of talk, controversy and developments on this subject:

• Bloomberg & Kelly have defended the Stop & Frisk Program.
• In some cases it is now being called the "Stop, Question & Frisk" program.
• Bloomberg claims the program focuses on young blacks because they commit 95% of the crimes.
• The court trial ended.  Judge Shira Scheindlin declared that the program violates civil rights and appointed Nicholas Turner, president of the VERA Institute of Justice, as the facilitator for reforms of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices.
• The New York City Council has passed new laws over Mayor Bloomberg's veto. These include:

• created a new position of Inspector General for the NYPD, and;
• provisions that make it easier for a citizen to sue the police officer & NYPD if they feel they suffered racial bias.
• During the current Mayor campaign liberal candidates are mostly in line to end stop & frisks completely, while conservative candidates want to keep stop & frisk as is.

My own positions on this are:

• The NYPD does need to do some stop & frisks to control crime in New York City.  However, I think Bloomberg & Kelly are doing it to a degree that is excessive and obsessive and racist.  (There is simply no doubt of that!) 
• The Judge appointed a federal reviewer because Bloomberg & Kelly are unwilling to reign in their excesses.  And the City Council seems hapless to control the Mayor & Police Commissioner.
• I would have preferred that the City Council merge the "Inspector General" position into the already existing "Public Advocate" position, rather than make a new bureaucrat and bureaucracy.
• I think making it easier to sue the individual police officer and the NYPD is misguided.  First, suing somebody is after the fact.  I would rather we use reasonable control & management first  Second, there is evidence that the racial bias is not because of the individual police officer, but because of the whole chain of command, starting with the Mayor & Police Commissioner.  It is unfair to make the police officer responsible for management policies.  Third, this will mostly make lawyers rich at the public expense.

I have my own business as a dog walker & pet sitter on Staten Island.  Summer is my busy season and I have not had time devote to this project. Originally, I put a full copyright on my documents.  A friend suggested I use a Creative Commons license that would allow others to work on this project without fear of infringing my copyright.  I have selected this license:

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

"This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms."

You can read more about Creative Commonsd licenses at:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

I posted a copy of my study online for you to review.  The study is a collection of PDF files in a ZIP file located here:
(This doesn't work quite as planned.  Copy & past to a URL searcher spot on your browser.)
http://www.filedropper.com/nypdstopandfiskstudy2003to2012asof2013-09-06

Or maybe this will work better:
<a href=http://www.filedropper.com/nypdstopandfiskstudy2003to2012asof2013-09-06><img src=http://www.filedropper.com/download_button.png width=127 height=145 border=0/></a><br /><div -size:9px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;width:127px;font-color:#44a854;> <a href=http://www.filedropper.com >upload files online</a></div>

Bill Keck
Staten Island, NY