What!?!

There's evidence that the New York City Police Department actually did commit racial profiling? You mean to tell me, after Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Abner Louima, and Sean Bell, a study done for the Center for Constitutional Rights has found that some of New York City's finest actually have a pattern of targeting black men for stop and frisk procedures, despite no justification for it?

Gasp and swoon, I just caught the vapors!

Okay, facetious tone aside, the study reveals some pretty damning things about the NYPD that people have been suspicious of for years -- things that we brothers in New York experience all the time (especially if you live in Ocean Hill or Brownsville, Brooklyn) -- and that seems to be the heated topic of talk radio and cable news discussion every time the cops smoke another black man.

I know quite a few good NYC cops patrolling the streets every day. But at the same time, you can't help but question the method of stopping individuals, questioning them and even frisking them without them being suspects of a crime. The study says it was done 2.8 million times between 2004 and 2008. There are 8 million people in the Five Boroughs, so that's really like saying every brother in New York has been stopped and frisked by po-po at least once.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the tactic has helped to reduce crime in New York and get guns off the street. But an investigation done by the Village Voice suggested that police in the 81st precinct, which covers Central Brooklyn did stop-and-frisk measures as a quota under threat by precinct bosses.

The Supreme Court, over the years of leaning both left and right, has upheld that in order for anyone to be stopped and searched by the police, there must be reasonable suspicion that the person is a felon or dangerous in some way. There's this whole premise of illegal search and seizure and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects us from it.

Because of the Fourth Amendment, agencies like the state and local police and the FBI have to get a warrant before they come for you. It protects us from Five-O locking us up because they feel like it. Believe me, I've been in countries where they can get away with that and it makes you glad to be in a country where at least the law works in principle.





So with all this, why do New York cops participate in stop and frisk? Well, because the crime rate in the 'hood is high. Black males, statistically, do commit the most crimes in these areas, but the biggest crime victims in our neighborhoods are also black. In 2009, blacks were victims of violent crimes at a rate of 26.8 per 1,000 compared to 15.8 for whites.

This means there's no denying that we have a violence problem in our communities, on our streets, and I'll argue one that is an affliction on our very culture. But there is no evidence that racial profiling, stop-and-frisk, police brutality or any kind of unlawful police action results in a long term reduction of criminal activity.

And that is why the CCR is suing the NYPD. It has determined that race, rather than criminal activity, is the motive behind the stop-and-frisk actions.

Hey, I'm not a cop, and I don't profess to know what cops go through every day. But I am a black man, one who has had to be leery of police a few times in my life. I have no interest in telling law enforcement what to do, but as a citizen who works hard every day to pay my rent and taxes, I don't need law enforcement shaking me down because they think I might be guilty.