Cops stopped and questioned nearly one-third of
Brownsville’s residents last year - the highest out of the city’s 76 police
precincts.
Six miles away in
Borough Park only 2 % of the neighborhood’s population was quizzed by cops in
2011 - the lowest number in the New York Civil Liberties Union citywide ranking
analyzing “stop-and-frisk” NYPD data.
“There is a set of
rules for people of color; and a set of rules for whites,” said Donna
Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “Policing in New York is a tale of
two cities.”
Lieberman said
Brooklyn’s divide shows what’s wrong with the controversial policing practice
now at the center of a heated debate on whether racism fuels its widespread
use.
“No matter how you
slice it, counting the number of stops, or the stops per capita, blacks and
Latinos were targets,” Lieberman said.
In Brownsville, where
25,167 people were stopped by cops, older men complained of being harassed in
the neighborhood, which is 96% black and Latino.
“I was smoking
outside my building. This cop said I couldn’t be there. He thought I didn’t
know the law,” said Benjamin Cruz, 50, living in the housing project with his
two young grandsons. “They are really getting out of hand out here.”
Neighborhood police
sources said race isn’t enough to warrant a stop. Rather, officers focus on
suspects’ descriptions and more obvious signs of criminal activity like young
men sporting beads and handkerchiefs.
“You have to watch
out for the colors that they wear,” said a Brownsville beat cop noting that the
area’s high concentration of public housing is a breeding ground for gang
crime.
Still, the NYCLU
found more racial disparity tied to the borough.
Officers in East New
York - a largely black neighborhood - stopped the most people citywide counting
31,100 run-ins; while Greenpoint - a largely white neighborhood - was at the bottom
of the list with 2,023 citywide.
“It is based on race,
and it is ineffective,” said Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-East Flatbush. “It
is either accidental, incidental, or purposeful racism.
“It boggles my mind
how they can continue this policy.”
But the Police Dept,
is not backing off the practice.
NYPD spokesman Paul
Browne said cop stops were up 10 % in the first four months of 2012 and that
murders are down compared to the same period in 2011 when a record high of
nearly 686,000 cop stops were logged.
A Greenpoint police
source said local officers don’t stop a lot of people because guns and drugs
aren’t a major problem in the quiet leafy community home to mainly older Polish
families and new hipster transplants.
“If you have less
crime, few people are targeted,” the source said