NYPD Officer Rich Explains New York City’s “Stop, Question And Frisk” Program

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Remember, this is happening in New York City.  This is being administered by New York City’s police department.  It is not being administered by the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the IRS, the Department of Education, Department of Energy, or any of the other armed goons that work for the federal government that are armed, locked, and loaded against the citizenry because they’re told they have to protect themselves from me and you.  After all, are fleets and armies of NSA and CIA agents necessary for a work of love and reconciliation?  I have news for you, listeners.  We are that enemy.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  If you’re following the activities and the administration of Mayor Michael Adolf Dumberg, you know him as Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, you may have stumbled upon a story or two that did not comport with your version of freedom and living in a free society when it comes to food and cigarettes, when it comes to trans fat, when it comes to sodas with sugar in them, and yesterday as I reported, when it comes to electronic cigarettes, his honor, Mayor Bloomberg, is the leader of the brand-new nanny state “I am your almighty overseeing daddy” state.  There’s no one in these United States that is more aggressive and proactive in these issues and in these concerns of daily life than is Mayor Bloomberg.

Then we find this.  You people that are in NYPD, maybe you can explain this: “NYC Mayor Bloomberg staunchly defends stop-and-frisk program.”  What is the stop-and-frisk program?  You know, AG, this sounds like something the NFL came up with and you would see outside a football stadium on any given Sunday.  [mocking] “Hey, stop, you can’t come in here.  We have rules.  This is the NFL.  Hey, lady, what’s in that?  You can’t bring that bag in here.” — “It’s just a purse.” — “You can buy one of our clear ones over here.  We’re going to have to frisk you and see if there’s anything else on you.”

[reading]

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is making no apologies for the “stop, question and frisk” program that a federal judge said Monday infringes on people’s rights and singles out minorities.

Speaking bluntly, the mayor said the New York City Police Department is the poster child for safety among major U.S. cities and tracks down crime where it happens.

“And they don’t worry if their work doesn’t match up to a census chart,” he said.

[end reading]

Mike:  This is where it gets sticky, folks.  Remember, this is happening in New York City.  This is being administered by New York City’s police department.  It is not being administered by the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the IRS, the Department of Education, Department of Energy, or any of the other armed goons that work for the federal government that are armed, locked, and loaded against the citizenry because they’re told they have to protect themselves from me and you.  After all, are fleets and armies of NSA and CIA agents necessary for a work of love and reconciliation?  I have news for you, listeners.  We are that enemy.

[reading]

U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled city police officers have been stopping innocent people for years — especially minorities, even when there is no reason to suspect they’d committed a crime — to search them for weapons, drugs or other goods under the program, a marquee part of Mr. Bloomberg’s anti-crime measures.

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“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” the judge wrote. [Mike: Why not? We live in an age of terrorism. The NFL is all over this. The TSA is all over this. Hell, half the known universe is all over this. Why shouldn’t the NYPD be all over this, right? We all know there are madmen out there in every American city right now just getting ready to kill hundreds of thousands of us.] “Those who are routinely subjected to stops are overwhelmingly people of color, and they are justifiably troubled to be singled out when many of them have done nothing to attract the unwanted attention.”

The practice treads on the Fourth Amendment because of the nature of the search and on the 14th Amendment . . .

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Mike:  Here we go again, the miracle amendment, the amendment that cures breast cancers, lung cancers, enables anyone of any gender to become any animal or any kind of a cross between sexes they want to be, and in the process to earn all sorts of federal dollars in subsidies and have rights accorded to them.  Just imagine what it is you would like to do and the 14^th Amendment makes it possible.  There is nothing that the framers of the 14^th Amendment did not intend for that amendment to satisfy or to adjudicate in favor of the people.  Why is a federal judge being called in, I might ask, on a matter that is local?  I’m just curious….

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[reading]

In a scathing rebuke, she said the city’s highest officials “have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner,” she wrote.

For years, civil rights advocates and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union warned that the stop-and-frisk program amounts to rampant racial profiling. The high-profile legal decision drew commentary from the top contenders to succeed Mr. Bloomberg in the city’s tabloid-friendly mayoral race, as well as the legal community.

“Today’s ruling is a vindication not just of the rights of all New Yorkers, but of all Americans,” said Jerry J. Cox, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. [Mike: Of course you’re going to say that.]

Race weighed heavily in the judge’s reasoning. She warned of a “self-perpetuating cycle” of discrimination if the NYPD continued to use past crime data as a baseline for who it stops, and that racial disparities jump out from data.

[end reading]

Mike:  What are you supposed to use?  If you can’t use past crime data – I’m not making any excuses for the NYPD, because I don’t know the nuts and bolts of the case.  What exactly is the metric that you’re supposed to use?  I guess what the judge is saying is: You keep stopping people that might look suspicious to the average citizen, but why aren’t you stopping Granny Smith?  No, not Granny Smith of green apple fame, that one over there that’s meandering down the street in that walker.  How do you know what’s under the blanket on the handles of the walker.  It might be a turret-mounted AK-47 under granny’s blanket.  She may be a terrorist in disguise.  Why aren’t you guys stopping her?  She may be a drug runner.  Do you know what’s under granny’s blanket, do you?  I’d like to learn a little bit more about this, so let’s talk to Rich who his in New York City.  Rich purports to actually be an NYPD officer.  I cannot verify that over a telephone call.  Rich, how you doing?

Caller Rich:  What’s going on, Mike?  I am an NYPD officer.  I’ve been a cop for 13 years.

Mike:  I’ll take your word for it.  I just want everyone to know that I cannot verify this.  I don’t want anyone sending me hate mail later on [mocking] “You didn’t get his badge number, you idiot.  Why didn’t you call Marty the cop and verify this?”

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Caller Rich:  It’s complicated.  The system, the way it’s supposed to work, is actually a very good school of law enforcement.  It can work in two ways.  Let’s say you are robbed.  You call 911 and the police respond.  Let’s say I respond.  You tell me a description of who robbed you.  I put that out over the air.  Another cop in my precinct stops somebody that fits that description.  I bring you to that person: Is that the guy that robbed you?  No.  The cop that stopped that person is supposed to fill out a card called the “Stop, Question and Frisk” card.  It checks off: Did the officer explain why he stopped you?  Why did you stop him?  Then there’s a whole bunch of boxes he checks off.  Does he fit the description.  Is it in a high-crime area?

I work in the Bronx, which is a very high-crime area.  It’s not racial profiling when 80 percent of the crime in a minority neighborhood are committed by minorities.  It’s a law of averages.  It’s unfortunate because 90 percent of the people you stop are either black or Hispanic.  In my precinct, I would say I have less than 20 percent Caucasian in my precinct.  The crimes being committed in my precinct are being committed by minorities.  That’s one way it can work.

The other way is when you’re being proactive where you’re just driving around not answering the 911 calls but being proactive looking for crime.  You see somebody that — if I’m the police officer, if you stop somebody, to be able to articulate after the fact if nothing comes of it why you stopped them.  Again, “Stop, Question and Frisk” is a card.  After the stop, you’re supposed to explain to the person why you stopped them: It’s unfortunate you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Where Bloomberg took it to another level is, all this information, at the end of the day you turn in the cards and they get entered into a database.  It was a way for them to gather information.

When the detectives have a burglary pattern, one witness says: I think I saw this person.  The detectives go into the “Stop, Question and Frisk” database and put in the description.  It’ll bring up every person in the city that was stopped based on that description.  You have the younger cops going out there and the precinct commanders saying: I need you to be proactive, proactive, proactive.  It became more of a quota and an activity goal as opposed to an actual good tool of enforcement.  That’s where the problem is.  The people that are really complaining about it, it’s unfortunate but it’s not downtown Manhattan.  It’s not midtown Manhattan.  It’s the Bronx, the depressed neighborhoods where, unfortunately, the majority of the people that live there are minorities and that’s where the crime is being committed.  That’s my best explanation.

Mike:  Do you know, was this Bloomberg’s idea or is this something —

Caller Rich:  Every police officer in the country, if they don’t fill out the form, if you’re being proactive and somebody commits a crime and the police respond, those police are going to put a description out over the radio to their other officers that are working.  Those police officers are now driving around looking for somebody that matches that description.  If you see somebody — 90 percent of the descriptions that come over the radio are male so and so wearing dark clothing, zippered sweatshirt, hoody.  Driving down the Bronx, everybody’s wearing a Yankee hat and a hoody and blue jeans.  If it’s a male black or male Hispanic, it’s unbelievable — it’s not the victim’s fault because the victim is just a victim of a crime.  They’re in shock and that’s the only thing they can say.  We go out and try to look and we stop somebody: Hey, I got somebody who possibly matches the description over here.  Bring the victim by.  The victim will say yes or no.  It happens a lot that it is yes, that we met their match.

Mike:  So you’re doing a lineup on the street basically?

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Caller Rich:  It’s called a show-up.  You’re detaining somebody, no handcuffs.  If a victim comes by and sees somebody in handcuffs, they might just say: Yeah, he’s in handcuffs already, that’s him.  That’s a bad thing.  You just stop and say: Listen, this is what it is.  They get annoyed, so we have the 911 dispatcher read back the description that came over 911: Listen, that obviously looks like you.  We’re just going to bring the victim by.  If it’s not you, I’m just going to fill out a card to justify why I stopped you and you can go on your way.  That’s essentially the way it’s supposed to work.  Every department does it.  Every police department in the country that is responding to a crime in progress and the perp has fled the scene, they’re going to stop people that match the description.  It’s a way to do it on the street.  It’s not a lineup like on TV where you have five people standing in a room and the two-way mirror and go: Yeah, that’s him.  It’s on the scene.  It’s within the first 10, 15 minutes of the crime being committed.  It’s just a proactive way.  For us in the NYPD, the “Stop, Question and Frisk” is a form.  It’s just a catchy way to call it, but that’s what it’s called.

Mike:  Are you guys, when you do your morning briefings or afternoon briefings or whatever it is before you’re dispatched out into the wilds of New York City or the Bronx to go do your police force, are you reminded by your captain that you’re always supposed to be mindful of the civil liberties of the citizens and that you always are supposed to proceed with courtesy and politeness: Look, this is just a formality.  We do have a reason to stop you.  This is not an unreasonable stop.  Someone was mugged or stabbed.  They just happen to fit your description very abstractly.  I’m just going to ask you to stay here while the person who was assailed comes by and either verifies or denies that you are — hopefully you’re not our guy.”  Are you told and reminded that there are these things called civil liberties?

Caller Rich:  You’re not reminded that for civil liberties.  You learn that in the academy.   You’re supposed to be cognizant of that at all times.  We call it rolled bald when you’re turned out for the day.  Our muster room where we all gather, there are wanted posters and we have a big video monitor of crime trends in the neighborhood with descriptions of potential people.  The non-patrol units, the undercover units in the precinct are supposed to go out and: Listen, this block is being hit with auto break-ins or burglaries; this is a possible description of the perpetrator.

So when those guys are out in those neighborhoods, if they’re seeing people that fit that description, it’s on the police officer to go from common law right of inquiry all the way up to probable cause that a crime was committed.  For a stop to be done, you have to have reasonable suspicion that a penal law felony or misdemeanor could be being committed or about to be committed.  I can just jump out of the car and stop somebody, but it’s going to be up to me to justify how I got the reasonable suspicion that I think that guy might be about to or already has committed a crime.  It’s not just a random: Hey, you, you’re a black guy.  We’re looking for a black guy.  Give me your name.  The policing work still has to be done correctly.  You’re out there proactively looking for the burglar and you have a potential description, then you see somebody that matches that description, which is usually a very vague description, it’s on the police officer or you open yourself up to a civil lawsuit.

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If that person was unjustly stopped and the police officer can’t articulate how he stopped him, why he stopped him, what made him detain him against his constitutional rights — that penny stop on the street, you’re detaining somebody.  It violates their constitutional rights, but the police officer has the right to do it for the good of the public as long as you can explain why you’re doing it.  It has to be reasonable suspicion.  You have to have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop somebody, to detain them.  I can stop somebody: Excuse me, sir.  Can you stop?  The guy can say: Screw you, I’m not going to stop.  I have to be able to, if I’m going to say I want you to stop and you have to stop, I have raised the level of suspicion that I have to articulate why I am now saying.  Did the guy make a furtive movement?  Did he do something?  Inside his jacket I saw a suspicious bulge.  You have to be able to articulate why you’re doing it.

Mike:  You better watch talking about suspicious bulges this day and age, buddy.

Caller Rich:  Especially in New York City, right?

Mike:  You better tread lightly, my friend.

Caller Rich:  That’s the easiest way to explain it.

Mike:  I think you did a great job.  I appreciate the info very much.  Thank you, Rich, I appreciate it.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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