Stop And Frisk Case Study

The New York Police Department’s use of “Stop-and-Frisk” is based on the Supreme Court case of Terry vs. Ohio in 1968. In this case, the Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, is not violated when an officer stops and frisks a person on the street without probable cause to arrest, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person has or is about to commit a crime, and if he has reason to believe the person could be armed and dangerous. In recent years, the NYPD’s use of Stop-and-Frisk has been criticized as unconstitutional and a form of racial profiling. The NYPD’s name for Stop-and-Frisk is a 250, and it is an effective tactic for proactive policing, as evidenced by the decline in crimes

City of New York charged that the NYPD often did not have reasonable suspicion to perform Stop-and-Frisks, which is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. It also accused the NYPD of racially profiling the people they choose to stop; eighty five percent of those stopped were of African American and Hispanic descent, even though these two groups make up only fifty two percent of the population of New York City. This was said to be in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The City responded by rationalizing that the high number of stops is in proportion to the higher percentage of crime committed by these minorities. After a nine-week trial, on August 12, 2013, the same federal judge as the Daniels case, Judge Scheindlin, found the NYPD guilty of racial profiling and making unconstitutional Stop-and-Frisk stops. According to Judge Scheindlin, NYPD officers stopped “blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white” (Goldstein, 2013.) Judge Scheindlin did not find the practice of Stop-and-Frisk to be unconstitutional, but the way the NYPD conducted these stops as unconstitutional. She ordered officers in at least five precincts to wear body cameras to record Stop-and-Frisks, and also a federal monitor to oversee big changes in the way NYPD officers conduct Stop-and-Frisk searches. She also ordered community meetings with members of the public to get their input on changes that the NYPD should make. The City of New York filed an appeal to the verdict, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed to continue Stop-and-Frisks until the end of his administration because he “wouldn’t want to be responsible for a lot of people dying” (Goldstein,