City To Start Appeals Process Of Stop-And-Frisk Decision Friday
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - The Bloomberg administration announced it will file its notice of appeal on this week's stop-and-frisk decision on Friday.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin called the NYPD's stop, question and frisk tactic unconstitutional and appointed a federal monitor to oversee changes to the policy.
"As the Mayor and Police Commissioner Kelly said on Monday, we strongly disagree with Judge Scheindlin's order. We said we'd take immediate steps to appeal, and we plan to do so tomorrow by filing our Notice of Appeal," the city's lawyer Michael Cardozo said Thursday in a statement.
Speaking Thursday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it would be irresponsible if the next administration decided to stop the appeal.
City To Start Appeals Process Of Stop-And-Frisk Decision Friday
"Whoever wins the final election in November is gonna wake up the next morning and say, 'oh my God, we have the lowest crime rate and murder rate we've ever had. It's continuing to go down. I'm now responsible for doing that,'" said the mayor. "You would think that they would look at it very differently. I think it also would be pretty irresponsible given that ...the Supreme Court has already said we're not doing anything wrong."
Bloomberg and other officials have credited the policy in part for a pronounced drop in the homicide rate. The city averages one homicide a day currently, compared with six in 1990.
He added that the candidates speaking out against the controversial practice now may think differently if they make it to City Hall.
"I don't think you can assume whatever is said during a campaign has anything to do with reality," Bloomberg said.
Judge Scheindlin ruled that the stop-and-frisk policy amounts to "indirect racial profiling," in which "minorities are indeed treated differently than whites," and, "officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner."
"Far too many people in New York City have been deprived of this basic freedom far too often," she said. "The NYPD's practice of making stops that lack individualized reasonable suspicion has been so pervasive and persistent as to become not only a part of the NYPD's standard operating procedure, but a fact of daily life in some New York City neighborhoods."
Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly have repeatedly blasted those who say the police force engages in racial profiling while carrying out the stop-and-frisk policy.
The class action civil suit against stop-and-frisk was brought by defendants who claimed their civil rights were violated by the tactic.
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