NEW YORK - Mayor Bloomberg boasts that when New York does something, like banning super-size soft drinks, the world pays attention. Now a class action lawsuit against the New York Police Department (NYPD)'s stop-and-frisk tactics is putting him and a policy he championed in an ugly glare.
Beneath the sounds of birds and children playing in Central Park, thousands marched quietly down Manhattan’s 5th avenue on Sunday afternoon carrying signs bearing the faces of a decade of victims of police violence and the words “Stop Racial Profiling: End Stop and Frisk.” Contingents from nearly 300 groups including labor unions, community groups, national civil rights organizations as well as the unaffiliated gathered in Harlem and marched past khaki-clad upper east siders walking their poodles, to the home of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Their demand?
(Reuters) - A black New York City councilman who said he has been stopped by police on numerous occasions introduced a set of bills on Wednesday aimed at curbing the controversial crime-fighting tactic known as "stop and frisk."
The bills would require officers to identify themselves and present a business card when stopping a person, and to inform targets of their right to refuse a search. A third bill would expand the number of groups protected from racial profiling.
Posted on June 28, 2012
Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) released the following joint statement today with 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.