Today, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin held that the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

Below is the beginning of a WNYC story about the case: 

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin issued her long-awaited opinion finding that the New York City Police Department had violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments in the way they have conducted stop-and-frisks. 

“Targeting young black and Hispanic men for stops based on the alleged criminal conduct of other young black or Hispanic men violates bedrock principles of equality,” she wrote in her strongly-worded ruling.

In her opinion, which can be read in full below, Judge Scheindlin writes:

“To be very clear: I am not ordering an end to the practice of stop and frisk. The purpose of the remedies addressed in this Opinion is to ensure that the practice is carried out in a manner that protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much-needed police protection.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reacting Monday afternoon at a press conference, was visibly angered by the judge’s decision. “The judge ignored the realities of crime,” he said, “like the fact that our police officers on patrol make an average of less than one stop a week.”

More on Bloomberg’s reaction.

The judge specified a number of steps the NYPD must take to reform stop-and-frisk. It must revise its policies and training procedures, especially its “over-broad definition of ‘furtive behavior.’ It must change the written documentation police must produce after stops. and it must institute a one-year body camera pilot program involving one precinct in each borough. . . . 

 

READ THE “REMEDIAL OPINION”

Judge outlines what NYPD needs to do next.

 

READ THE RULING

Ruling: Judge finds NYC stop-and-frisk policy violated rights.