Letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio regarding the New York City Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices

SUMMARY

In a letter to Mayor de Blasio, the Committee on Civil Rights urged the new Mayor to reform the New York City Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices and offered to serve as a resource on this and other issues involving the civil rights and civil liberties of New Yorkers. The letter notes that the use of stop-and-frisk by the NYPD has raised justifiable concerns that police officers are stopping New Yorkers based not upon individualized suspicion of criminal activity but rather based upon illicit profiling of characteristics. It noted that Mayor de Blasio will have a historic opportunity to create a robust public safety infrastructure that is also protective of the civil rights and civil liberties of all New Yorkers. To this end, the letter recommends to the Mayor that he withdraw the appeal of Floyd v. City of New York, now pending before the Second Circuit, and institute a number of other needed reforms.