NYPD does it by the numbers

by Aleister
Published: Sunday, February 4th, 2007

New York - Last Friday, the New York Police Department released new data on the number of people it stopped and searched during 2006. The results are startling: since 2002, the number has quintupled to over half a million people, well over a thousand each day. Officers refer to these stops of suspicious individuals as "stop-n-frisks," both because the name is funny to them, and because it may actually help reduce the officers' biological need to be near convenience stores, better enabling them to enforce the law.

This is the first time in four years that such data has been released, despite a city law signed in 2001, mandating that the police department compile the number, reasons for stopping, and other relevant data on "stop-n-frisks" each quarter. "Eh," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, "we didn't really feel like it those years." When pressed for details, Commissioner Kelly responded by asking whether reporters would like to spend some time in jail for trespassing on public property.

Since the report has been issued, protests about racial profiling, already bolstered since a police squad's murder of a black street peddler in 1999, are at an all-time high. The data actually show that more than half of the 508,540 stops were of black suspects, although the proportion of black citizens in New York is under 25%. When faced with this question, police spokesman Paul Brown indicated that police officers "stop suspects based on descriptions, not based on personal biases. Which means we're actually racially progressive, because witnesses always describe the suspect as black. Possibly Puerto Rican. But who says you can't be both, in this crazy age?"

Brown showed us statistics indicating that nearly 70% of crimes involved suspects who were described as black. He described the number of black "stop-n-frisks" as "disproportionately low. Just look at how low that is." The same statistics indicated that Hispanics made up less than 25% of suspects, but received over 30% of the stops. We were again asked to leave when pointing this out.

On the street we came upon a beat officer, who asked to be identified only as "Officer 7-11," and who had some additional insight into the statistical story. He claimed that 2004's numbers would never be recovered or released, even though the department claims a slowdown due to technical difficulties. "2004," he said, leaning in close, "was the one we call 'the Year of the Darkie'. We really had to lay off after that one. Just about every single one in the city got stopped. The Commissioner said we had to switch to Puerto Ricans before they started putting the numbers back out. So we're switching, but it's a long hard process. You do things one way for a while; it's a tough habit to break, you know?"

When questioned about the status of non-Puerto Rican Hispanics, Officer 7-11 replied, confused, that he didn't know what we were talking about.