Charney rattled off statistics before three tables of lawyers and a courtroom filled with reporters and spectators, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and dozens more people watching by television in an adjoining courtroom. He told the court that police stopped and frisked 4.4 million people between 2004 and 2012, that hundreds of thousands of those stops lacked reasonable suspicion, that 88 percent resulted in no arrest or summons, and that a gun was found in only .15 percent of the encounters.
Charney said that when officers fill out stop-and-frisk forms, called UF-250s, they often justify the encounters only by checking boxes saying "furtive motive" or "high-crime area."
The evidence, he said, will show that the NYPD has a quota system for making stops. It will include audio recordings from at least two precincts, the testimony of precinct commanders, and surveys of retired commanders.
He said a commander in the 40th precinct in the Bronx told one patrol officer to get his numbers up and instructed him that "he should be stopping the right people."
When asked who the "right people" were, Charney said, the commander said "black males between the ages of 14 and 21 because they are the ones committing all the robberies."
And Charney quoted state Senator Eric Adams, D-Brooklyn, a former officer and cofounder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, as asking Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly why the numbers of stop-and-frisks were so high for minority men. Charney said Kelly responded "because we want to instill in them" that they could be stopped at any time and they should "leave their guns at home."
'Sideshow'
Grossman hit back, calling the quota claims a "sideshow." The NYPD has performance standards, not quotas, she said, and the number of stops reflect police responding to high areas of criminal activity.
"Your honor, simply put, crime drives where police officers go, not race," Grossman said.
She countered Charney's criticism of training and supervision in the NYPD, outlining in detail how stops are supervised, how the department constantly monitors officer performance and how there are several avenues for taking citizen complaints and disciplining officers.
Grossman also rapped the plaintiffs' witness list, which includes the four name plaintiffs, including David Floyd, and eight class members.
Between the 12, she said, there were 19 alleged stops, but several of the witnesses will be unable to identify who stopped them, some of the encounters did not rise to the level of a stop and in at least three of the encounters, the witnesses admit they were engaging in "some or all of the behavior that gave rise to reasonable suspicion."
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Michael
As a white man stopped numerous times, simply because I can only afford to live in a mostly minority neighborhood, I hope a monitor is assigned. When the NYPD stopped only SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE, it took more guns off the street. Now that they stop whomever they want, whenever they want, far less guns are found (which means I get to worry about having a gun pointed at me, by either a police officer or a criminal....). If only Bloomturd cared as much about fighting gun crime as she does my soda intake or whether I can see my cigarette brand when buying a pack......
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