The Return of New York’s Most Notorious Cops
IntelligencerJan 25, 2022
According to a report released by a court-appointed monitor on Monday, the New York Police Department (NYPD) is still stopping, frisking, and searching in large numbers, despite its stop-and-frisk policy being declared unconstitutional a decade ago.
Federal monitor Mylan Denerstein has claimed that the NYPD's Neighborhood Safety Teams (NSTs) are unjustifiably targeting people of color and running afoul of the law in efforts to combat gun violence in high-crime areas.
This scathing report only confirms what Black and Hispanic New Yorkers have been saying all along — people of color are policed differently to their white counterparts and are disproportionately targeted by stop-and-frisk. This news also raises the question of why the NYPD still engages in unconstitutional policing and indirect racial profiling, despite assurances from Mayor Eric Adams that new policies and training would end such abusive practices.
NSTs have been instrumental in bringing the number of shootings, gun violence-related crimes, and homicides down. The latest statistics show that the NYPD has dealt a blow to low-level crimes and violations, and prevented more serious crimes from taking place. The NSTs protect New Yorkers’ physical safety and have effectively kept interactions with the public lawful — the methodology and findings of Denerstein's audit should face significant scrutiny.
There's a 2% chance that a large American city will fully abolish its police department before 2035, according to the Metaculus prediction community.