New York police stops racist, suit alleges | NDTV.com

19.3.13

New York police stops racist, suit alleges | NDTV.com: Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights said the policy is legal, but the department is illegally targeting black and Hispanic men because of their race.

Charney called many of the half million annual stops a "frightening and degrading experience" for "thousands if not millions" of New Yorkers over the last decade. He called them "arbitrary, unnecessary and unconstitutional."

The NYPD stopped close to 531,159 people on the street last year, up from more than 90,000 a decade ago. Fifty-one per cent of those stopped were black, 32 per cent Hispanic and 11 per cent white. According to U.S. Census figures, there are 8.2 million people in the city: 26 per cent are black, 28 per cent are Hispanic and 44 per cent are white.