The aggressive stop-and-frisk laws that were supposed to make citizens safer might not have been as effective as people thought.
For the past two years, the media have depicted the stop-and-frisk laws as necessary to save black and Hispanic lives.
Yet, this week, New York City's crime rate hit a 20-year low. Last week, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said there were 20 fewer murders this year compared to last. “Our rates are probably some of the best in the nation," Bratton said.
The man behind this new policy to stop unnecessary police stop-and-frisks is New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. His focus was ending the thousands of unconsitutional stops of people who weren't suspects, most of whom were black and Latino. Between 2004 and 2012, there were 4.43 million stops, 52 percent being black and 32 percent Latino.
Last year, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD's use of stop-and-frisk was unconstitutional because cops were stopping people without reasonable suspicion, making the policy an example of indirect racial profiling.
Her comments sparked intense media debate that stop-and-frisk is essential to preserving life on the streets, especially by the right-wing media.
“Stats aside, it's a fact if you take stop-and-frisk away, more black Americans and more Hispanic Americans are going to die,” said Bill O'Reilly.
However, the call to action on this issue was not to take stop-and-frisk away; it was to address the unconstitutional searching of people who are not suspects and are not committing crimes.
Over the last two years, police stops have fallen significantly, down 75 percent from 2011. In 2013, the city recorded the fewest amount of murders in its history.
Cities across the country without aggressive stop-and-frisk policies have seen big drops in their murder rates as well.
According to Wikipedia, there are about 2 million black people and 2.2 million Hispanic people living in NYC. If 4.43 million stop and frisks were conducted, 88% of which were on these 4.2 million people, it is very likely that most, if not all, of the young males of this population (because they probably weren't frisking women and children!) were stopped many, many times. A class action suit for harassment seems justifiable in these circumstances. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated," does not seem difficult to understand.
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