Liberty City Press AUG. 25-SEPT. 1, 2013
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NYC Needs Some Brotherly Love How Philly got stop and frisk right
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ate last month, a federal judge sitting in Manhattan said in 39 pages what we all know in one line: Police stop-and-frisk procedures systematically violate the U.S. Constitution’s 4th Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. What we didn’t know was that such police procedures also violate our 14th Amendment protection from racial discrimination or what U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin called “indirect racial profiling.” A little more than two years earlier, it was the Philadelphia Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program that was in the crosshairs of civil rights attorneys. But in a move contrary to what seems to be an aggressively litigious Nutter administration (just ask any city firefighter or casino operator), the city signed a consent decree with the lawyers of eight black and Latino men in June 2011, which sidestepped such a ruling. In announcing that settlement with the city, the ACLU said at the time: “The city and the plaintiffs recognize that stop and frisks are a legitimate police enforcement practice and that they must be conducted consistent with constitutional requirements of legal cause and without any impermissible considerations of race or national origin.” The settlement also laid out the following procedures: “As part of the settlement, the Philadelphia Police Department will collect data on all stop and frisks, provide officers with necessary training and supervision with respect to stop and frisk practices and … establishes a monitoring system in which the police department, plaintiffs counsel, and an independent court-appointed monitor, Dean JoAnne A. Epps, from the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, will review and analyze the data. Dean Epps will have the authority to recommend appropriate practices and policies to ensure that stops and frisks by the PPD are in compliance with the Constitution.” In handing down her opinion, Scheindlin chastised New York City for not going down the road Mayor Nutter travelled two years ago. Scheindlin wrote: “I note that the city’s refusal to engage in a joint attempt to craft remedies contrasts with many municipalities that have reached settlement agreements or consent decrees when confronted with evidence of police misconduct.” To hammer home the point, in her “Remedies Opinion,” Scheindlin mandated the very same procedures under which our police department today conducts its stop-and-frisk program, including employ-
Joanne epps, dean of the Beasley School of law at temple, also serves as an independent court-appointed monitor for the police department’s stopand-frisk cases. Ryan Brandenberg, Temple University Photography
ing an independent monitor to oversee all stop and frisks. Compare the vitriol of New York City in the wake of the judge’s ruling to the calm and measured statements coming out of Philadelphia concerning stop and frisk. Take this comment from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “Your safety and the safety of your kids is now in the hands of some woman who does not have the expertise to do it.” Or this from New York Police Com-
missioner Ray Kelly: “Violent crime will go up.” Compare their words to those of Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey, who told the Philadelphia Daily News: “It’s in everybody’s best interest that any stop that the police make is done within constitutional guidelines.” When asked by the Daily News why he and other city leaders chose to work with the civil rights lawyers who filed Continued on page 2
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