Skepticism prevails in US despite new ruling on stop-and-frisk tactic

Despite a federal ruling that the stop-and-frisk tactic violates the US constitutional rights of minority, people of color in America are still concerned about the police tactic.

Many people in Brownsville in eastern Brooklyn, New York City, say Judge Shira A. Scheindlin’s decision only affirmed what they already knew, and that they are concerned that the practice would continue.

“We all want security, but we don’t want security by treading on your constitutional rights,” the New York Times quoted Winston Cooper as saying.

Cooper, 62, said he had been stopped about eight times by the New York police, sometimes just for re-entering his building.

“I would understand if there’s a genuine thing – that’s cool,” he said. “But don’t tell me every night, people are coming in, needing to be stopped.”

A police service area in East Brooklyn had 3,020 police stops in the first quarter of 2013, according to the Times.

Black people in the neighborhood said they had little hope that even as the rule book of stop-and-frisk policing changed, the practice would change along with it.

“It’s what’s instilled in the cops,” Steve Doughty, 38, said, referring to the stop-and-frisk tactic. “They just have this instilled racism in them.”

Some people interviewed by the newspaper said they could see the merits of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s argument that stop-and-frisk tactics could be an invaluable crime-fighting tool.

But the New York Civil Liberties Union demonstrated in a 2012 report that there had been a sharp increase in number of police stops over the period of Bloomberg’s three terms in office.

The number of searches rose from 160,851 stops in 2003 to 685,724 in 2011, while half of the 2011 searches included physical searches.

On Monday, Judge Scheindlin ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee compliance with other remedies she ordered, including adopting written policy guideline specifying circumstances where stops are authorized.

She also authorized to adopt a trial program requiring the use of body-worn cameras in one precinct in each of the New York City’s five boroughs; and to set up a community-based remedial process under a court-appointed facilitator.