“Stop and Frisk” Has Now Gone Digital For NYPD

A federal class-action lawsuit accuses New York police of unconstitutionally detaining people in order to run their IDs.

“They have nothing besides the fact that these are young men in certain neighborhoods,” said Cyrus Joubin, an attorney for the plaintiffs, arguing that the practice violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches, and the 14th, which prohibits racial discrimination.

“We have reason to believe that it’s just common practice for them to run warrant checks on the vast majority of people whom they stop,” said Molly Griffard, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Cop Accountability Project who is also representing plaintiffs in the case. “The NYPD’s own data confirms that the vast majority of people who they stop each year are Black and Latinx. So, when they run warrant checks and record searches on the majority of people who they stop, it is a continuation of their racist stop-and-frisk practices, but with an invasive digital component.”

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Economic Left