New York City Council
Public Safety Committee
December 16, 2024
Thank you, Chairperson Salaam, and members of the New York City Council Public Safety Committee, for the opportunity to submit testimony regarding the oversight of the New York Police Department’s (‘NYPD’) Use of Stop and Frisk and Other Investigative Encounters (T2024-2707).
Queens Defenders is a Public Defender organization in Queens, New York. Since, 1996, our lawyers have helped over 500,000 people in cases involving homicides and major trials, in treatment courts, domestic violence, housing, youth felony parts and immigrants charged with criminal offenses. We have legal offices in Kew Gardens, Jamaica, and we operate our Rockaway Community Justice Center (RCJC) & Outreach Center in Far Rockaway, Queens. The RCJC works with the office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and community-based organizations, police, elected officials, civic leaders, and residents to provide alternative and restorative justice-based solutions to crime.
Queens Defenders represents communities across the borough including those in Far Rockaway and South Jamaica. NYCLU report that for the period 2003-2023 South Jamaica, which is covered by the 103rd precinct, saw 1386 stops per 1000 residents with a total of 146,610 reported stops. During the same period in Far Rockaway, which is covered by the 101st precinct, there were 1332 stops per 1,000 residents with 89,350 total stops. These were amongst some of the highest stop rates in the city for that period1.
Stop-and-frisk practices continue to be used to profile-police Black and Latinx members of our community disparately and it is time for transparency, oversight, and accountability. On September 19, 2024, Mr. James Yates submitted a comprehensive ‘Report to the Court on Police Misconduct and Discipline,’2 highlighting that unlawful stop-and-frisk practices are on the rise again and there remains dismal accountability for police misuse of their powers. On October 7, 2024, the Court Appointed Independent Monitor released the latest report showing that the NYPD is failing to comply with their required documentation of Terry stops.3 This was ordered in Floyd v. City of New York (2013).4
Queens Defenders condemns the NYPD for their flagrant disregard of the Floyd court order and joins the call for their complete compliance moving forward. We thank the New York City Council Committee on Public Safety for holding this oversight hearing regarding the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk practices and other investigative tactics. This discourse is important in ensuring that our community is safe for everyone; and that all New Yorkers have their individual rights protected.
We call on the City Council to pass Int. 798, sponsored by Councilperson Althea Stevens, which seeks to eradicate the New York Gang Database. In the post stop-and-frisk landscape, gang policing is just another way the NYPD can implement profile policing – and it is time for it to end. Members of our community deserve to feel safe and secure from unconstitutional stops and racially motivated over-surveillance by the police.
- Queens Defenders condemns the NYPD for their continued misuse of stop and frisk practices
Black and Latinx members of our community are over-surveilled, over-policed, and as a result over-represented in the criminal legal system. Stop-and-frisk practices are implemented by the NYPD disparately. In 2023, only 6% of all stops were white. 59% of stops were Black, and 30% were Latinx.5 Stop-and-frisks were at an all-time high under the Bloomberg Administration. However, recent stop-and-frisk data shows us that these racially motivated stops are once again on the rise under the Adams Administration.6 This is extreme cause for concern, as was submitted by Judge Yates in a report regarding the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices and (lack of) accountability and discipline for police misconduct.7
In 2012, a federal class action in Davis v. City of New York, was brought challenging the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices in New York City Housing Authority (‘NYCHA’).8 In 2013, in Floyd v. City of New York, the Center for Constitutional Rights challenged street strops more generally, resulting in a federal court appointing an independent monitor to oversee how the NYPD are conducting civilian stops and other investigative encounters through court ordering mandatory reporting of such interactions.9 The settlement reached in Davis was used as rationale for the court ordered Monitor in the Floyd case. In Floyd, the court agreed that NYPD conduct these stops without suspicion and instead founded on unconstitutional racial profiling. On October 7, 2024, the Court Appointed Independent Monitor released the latest report showing that the NYPD is failing to comply with their required documentation of Terry stops.10 A Terry stop is when an “officer detains a civilian such that the person is not free to leave.”11 The results of the Monitor’s report are cause for alarm: they showcase chronic underreporting of stops. The Monitor auditing team has been reviewing NYPD body-worn camera (“BWC”). Concerningly, only 69% of Terry stops were documented in 2022 and 59% were documented in 2023.12 This means that up to 40,000 stops per year are not being reported.13 This shows dismal compliance generally, and indeed that trends of compliance are decreasing.
Mass incarceration plagues New York. In 2023, New York State had an incarceration rate of 317 per 100,000 people.14 This means there are approximately 59,000 New York residents who were incarcerated on any given day.15 Moreover, at least 267,000 different people were booked into New York jails over the 2023 annual period.16 These statistics are staggering. As Public Defenders, we are acutely aware of who are remanded in NYC jails and housed in State prisons. They are some of our community’s most vulnerable members. The racial disparity is harrowing — 90% of those detained at Rikers are Black or Latinx. Over half of the current Rikers population are flagged for mental health concerns. Many are remanded simply because they are unhoused or can’t make bail. The mass incarceration of New Yorkers does not keep our community safe. Incarcerating our most disadvantaged community members in jails and prisons where they are subject to deplorable conditions, systemic violence, and limited access to rehabilitative programs does not make New York safer for anyone.
The unconstitutional use of stop-and-frisk practices by the NYPD directly leads to the mass incarceration of Black and Latinx men, women and youth.
The Yates Report, as well as the Monitor’s Report, showcase appallingly inaccurate and insufficient reporting of stops by the NYPD despite a court order. Police are not above the law. We deserve transparency for how police powers are implemented, and we must deserve accountability when those procedures are used unfairly.
Stop and frisk practices continue to be used to profile-police Black and Latinx members of our community disparately – particularly in areas such as South Jamaica and Far Rockaway – and it is time for transparency, oversight, accountability and discipline.
- Queens Defenders supports Int. 798 abolishing the Gang Database
We support Int. 798, sponsored by Council Member Althea Stevens, which would abolish the Gang Database – and prohibit the NYPD or other agencies from creating a new Database with another name. It would also require the City to notify New Yorkers who have been added and inform them of how to request records about their inclusion.17 Moreover, Int. 798 would create a private right of action for those who have suffered harm as a result of these discriminatory practices.
NYPD have increasingly replaced stop-and-frisk practices with surveillance-based community policing via the Gang Database, which disparately profile Black and Latinx men, young adults, and children. The Gang Database puts minority youths and members at risk of false arrest, malicious prosecution, and wrongful deportation.18
There are approximately 16,000 New Yorkers on the Gang Database’s active list, with many more on the inactive list.19 Most members are between 17 and 27 years old. 99% of the people in the Gang Database are Black or Latinx.20 This statistic is staggering. Noticeably, there are no members of white supremacist or Mafia organizations – despite there being a recent rise in white supremacist gang activity.21
Many of the Gang Database members have not committed a crime and have been flagged for gang involvement simply due to non-criminal and racist stereotypes: family or friend association; which neighborhood or housing development they live in; or what they wear. For example, the NYPD has added people to its Gang Database for something as arbitrarily simple as being a Facebook friend or posting “happy birthday” on their profile page.22 This is an absurdly broad inclusionary policy that directly impacts individuals who end up on the database. It does not make New York City safer for anyone — all it does is create bad data and egregiously puts New Yorkers individual rights at risk. Questions should be asked as to whether funding police operations such as Operation Crew Cut (and those with similar operational goals but which operate under different names) represent a sound allocation of law enforcement resources. An audit conducted by the New York Office of the Inspector General into the Criminal Group Database23 confirmed that 99% of all entries in the database were Black and Hispanic. This proves what we as public defenders know: which is that this kind of “precision policing” is in in reality a way of using race as a proxy for crime.
As Public Defenders, we are acutely aware of how our young clients are treated more harshly in the court system when they are labelled a “gang member.” Such a label can limit chances of bail; alternatives to incarceration; and reduced sentences. In the context of gun prosecutions in Queens, whilst the Queens District Attorney’s Office facilitates a gun diversion program administered by the Fortune Society, the exclusionary criteria for the program make it largely inaccessible to most clients. Inclusion on the gang database will almost always ensure that diversion is no longer an option for a client. Indeed, inclusion on the gang database can have very real prejudicial impacts for young people in terms of their ability to access diversion and much needed programming in their communities.
The Gang Database is another way for the NYPD to racially discriminatorily over-surveil and over-police Black and Latinx New Yorkers. Indeed, the NYPD committed more officers to gang policing than there are gang motivated crimes in NYC.24 Gang policing in this manner is a form of racialized profile-policing and it is a violation of individual rights as protected by the Fourth; Fourteenth; and First Amendments. 25 This inherent racial bias makes it clear that reform is not an option and the Gang Database must be eliminated in its entirety.
There cannot be proper oversight of NYPD’s misuse of police powers through their continued stop-and-frisk practices without the analogous oversight of gang policing. They are both policing tactics motivated by harmful stereotypes of race and class, and they are unacceptable.
- Queens Defenders supports the movement to End Qualified Immunity in New York
There will continue to be a lack of transparency and accountability for as long as New York continues to accept the defense of qualified immunity for public officials — including the NYPD — when they violate constitutional rights. We commend City Council for passing legislation in 2021 that limited qualified immunity,26 but we note that these protections are still not entrenched at a State level. We thank Council Member Yusef Salaam on recently introducing Resolution 64527 – which calls on the New York State legislature to pass and the governor to sign the Jackson/Hunter Bill to End Qualified Immunity (S182/A710) Bill. We urge the City Council and the members of the Public Safety Committee to join advocacy for the passage of this State Bill in the 2025 legislative session.
- Conclusion
Transparency and accountability are two of the most important pillars of a society that ensures justice and safety for all of its members. There is a systemic culture of racially discriminatory profile policing in New York City. Stop-and-frisk practices continue to be used to profile-police Black and Latinx members of our community disparately. It is time for accountability and law reform to protect the safety and individual rights of all New Yorkers. Queens Defenders urges the New York City Council to enact legislative reform aimed at the much-needed oversight of unfettered police powers. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to submit testimony to the City Council Committee on Public Safety regarding this matter of significant public interest.
Yours sincerely,
Gina Mitchell
Attorney-in-Charge of Law Reform and Policy, Queens Defenders