- 19
- March
2012
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly appeared before the City Council to answer questions about police misconduct as demonstrated by the huge increase in police stop and frisk activity. Commissioner Kelly defended the policy as a necessary tool to prevent violence. When confronted with the fact that the aggressive police actions often involved police misconduct -- including illegal stop and frisks and asking people to produce identification -- that left many in the minority communities feeling as if they were under siege, Kelly defended the police actions. But in so doing, Commissioner Kelly did not distinguish between lawful stops and rampant police misconduct as demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands of illegal stops made each year by the members of the NYPD. Instead of engaging in a constructive discussion on how to make the policy productive without violating peoples' rights, Commissioner Kelly took a combative position and challenged the council members to come up with a better plan.
There was no attempt to suggest that the nearly 700,000 stops were all --- or even mostly --- constitutional. Morevoer, the statistics do not support the Commissioner's position that the policy is needed to save lives. Only a tiny fraction of the stops result in recovery of weapons or the arrest of wanted persons. The vast majority are acts of police misconduct and result in police officers subjecting people to an unlawful search or order to present identification. Refusal to comply with this police misconduct usually leads to bogus charges and false arrest for disorderly conduct or obstructing governmental administration. Finally, even if some good can be traced to the policy, it cannot excuse the wholesale disregard of constitutional protections against false arrest and unlawful searches -- common events that occur every day on the streets of New York City.
