Sharpton May Sue Over Stop-and-Frisks
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
During a sermon in Harlem yesterday, the Reverend Al Sharpton said his organization would begin collecting names with the idea of filing a class-action lawsuit against the police department for racial profiling.
Rev. Sharpton’s announcement came after the New York Police Department on Friday released to the City Council figures for the number of stop-and-frisks completed in the last year. There was a fivefold increase in the stops versus 2002, with blacks targeted in 55% of the cases.
A police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, said 68.5% of crime victims, or, in the case of a murder, witnesses, described the suspect as black.
“The data indicates no racial bias in the stops, but it does show a relationship between the percentage of individuals stopped and the descriptions of suspects,” Mr. Browne said.
Mr. Browne said increased enforcement and more thorough reporting accounted for the increase in stop-and-frisks to 508,540 in 2006 from 97,296 in 2002.
The police department was required to release data on stop-and-frisks in the aftermath of the Amadou Diallo killing, when accusations of racial bias were leveled at the police. The accusations have surfaced again in the wake of the police shooting of Sean Bell, who was unarmed.
After the Diallo case, officials said they believed the number of reported stop-and-frisks were dramatically underreported.
