Posted on 07/12/2013 9:03:57 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
Defying Mayor Bloomberg and his top cop, Raymond Kelly, the City Council passed two bills Thursday morning to rein in the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk.
The Council voted with veto-proof majorities for the bills to create an inspector general who will oversee the NYPD and to allow people to sue over racial profiling by cops.
The inspector general bill passed 40-11, and the racial-profiling bill by 34-17 -- getting exactly the number of votes needed to withstand Bloomberg’s expected veto. The votes came in a dramatic session that started late Wednesday and spilled into Thursday, and saw supporters and opponents of the bills passionately staking out their positions.
“There have been a lot of bald-faced lies told about this bill,” said Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), in a speech urging lawmakers who have never experienced being black, Latino, gay, Muslim or in another profiled group to “please listen to us.”
“We can have safety and can have police accountability at the exact same time,” he said. “If you don’t live there, if you haven’t been going through it ... please side with us.” Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens) recalled being stopped and frisked as a teen, which he said “dehumanized” him. “I was scared," he said. "Today I’m not scared ... I have a chance to do something about it.” Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) said the bill “will give every person subject to any police policy an automatic right to sue without any allegation of wrongdoing.”
“It will achieve the ultimate goal of this bill, to put judges in charge of the NYPD,” he said. “When the courts are in charge, we will become Chicago, we will become Detroit. Crime will soar, murder will rise, children will die.”
And Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens) denounced the bills as “an outrage.”
Involuntary surrender of rights is Orwellian bs. Police state is what you advocate.
Sorry all. My previous post was intended for another thread.
For example, profiling blacks for stop and frisk just because blacks may commit a higher relative percentage of crimes in the area is absolutely not something that should be permitted. Indeed, it's unconstitutional, IMHO.
Used in that form againsy the average Citizen, such shenanigans would be smacked down by the Supreme Court, I would suppose. I imagine they already have.
If instead, however, it was used under the auspices of Wartime Policy, e.g. against a specific group disproportionately more likely to wage War against the United States and its People, i.e. Muslims, then the Supreme Court might look at it a little differently.
Such stunts must be pulled very sparingly. It couldn't be Constitutional to throw such tactics into everyday use against any broad swath of citizens. Any Patriot should oppose something like that instinctively.
And yet it seems a very appropriate observation on this thread as well. I know the second thread you're talking about.
All of this discussion relates to Tyrannical Executive fiat at all levels of government.
Now that you mention it, thanks for pointing that out.
What if a person matching the description of a known criminal is seen leaving a building known to have “problems”? They haven’t done anything. Should they be stopped and questioned? What if police with the permission of the building owner make a patrol of a building and stop, question, and frisk certain people?
I want a strong check on police. On the other hand, some areas require a strong hand. A lot of this stemmed from claims of “racial profiling”. I don’t know if these claims are truly justified or just whining. Large cities are tough places to live. I don’t like em. I left. I got sick of women being attacked on the sidewalk and the perp gone before I could get down there. Or having my car broke into while in a friend’s apartment for five minutes when picking them up. et cetera.
Yes I am not referring to arbitrary stop and frisk, or even random checkpoints. I am referring to specific profiling for specific crimes.
Yes agreed. Arbitrary and random are obnoxious and intolerable. That should be stopped if it is actually occurring.
It's not what the NYPD policy, or ever was.
It was basically a policy that said to the beat coppers "guys, you need to do your jobs. If you observe someone breaking the law or someone who meets the legal definition of reasonably suspected of breaking the law, we expect you too stop him and conduct an investigation. And, by the way, prior to that investigation, in accordance to Terry v. Ohio, please conduct a pat-down for weapons".
They had to have a legal reason to detain someone, always have. This new law is just a way of telling the police to let the thugs run amok. No civilized society can survive under that regime.
Not the way I understand it was being applied and “IF” they reasonably believe a crime had been committed they could search?
They could relieve a person of their personal property without due process.???
What? The 4th amendment is anachronistic and out of date?
Well, how wonderful.
I argue that reasonable cause is unjust. Further over a period of 6 years they stopped more than 4 million people and had only a 12% arrest rate.
It’s wrong and unconstitutional. Don’t like gangs but, they need to work within the bounds of the law and stop constructing New rules giving them the imprimature to violate our rights.
Such behavior is already unconstitutional and thus illegal under USSC precedent. Stop and frisk requires the officer to be able to articulate specific facts which create a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. This is a lower standard than probable cause but much higher than "just because".
Who loses in this? the very people who are complaining, the residence of the drug infested housing projects! Enjoy a@@clowns you just cut off your nose inspite of your face. They complain because the cops are interupting thier business ventures, you know they are entreprenuers!
Ultimately this is about ‘disparate impact’ of ‘equal outcomes’. In other words this is about race.
Got it. If Obama decides that there is a ‘gun emergency’ in the country and bans firearms, you’d be totally ok with that. I guess you’d have to, considering you believe the Bill of Rights is actually the Bill of Suggestions.
They can do whatever they want to, violate anyone’s rights, as long as they can demonstrate need. “Lots of crime here. I need to be able to stop and frisk people just whenever.”
If you don’t give a crap when someone’s 4th amendment rights are violated, you can’t expect anyone to listen to you when you decry background checks as restrictions on your 2nd amendment rights.
The bill of rights either means something, or it doesn’t.
While I have a lot of respect for the Libertarian point of view in many areas, there’s a part of me that can’t shake my old-fashioned “law and order” brand of conservatism.
That aside, if the NYPD, or any PD for that matter, we actually stopping people for no reason at all, I’d agree with you. But that’s not the case.
In order to even have an intelligent conversation, some rudimentary familiarity with the legal standards really is essential though.
The standard for a detention, which has been tried, argued, and adjudicated nearly to death is “reasonable suspicion”, not “reasonable cause” or “probable cause”.
The question of the constitionality of the “frisk” or “pat-down” search for weapons was settled in 1968 in Terry v. Ohio. Now, it’s fine to disagree with SCOTUS (I, myself, do all the time), but it would help to at least acknowledge that this wasn’t something that the NYPD just dreamed up six years ago and was out running amok.
The wikipedia entries for the above are actually pretty good, if you have any interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_v._Ohio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion
I’m familiar with your points. I still maintain it’s an abrigement.
OK, fine. And not to flog a dead horse here, I’ve long tried to understand the point of view that you are advocating, so in all seriousness, what is the alternative to the “stair-step” level of proof we’ve evolved here in the US over the past couple of centuries?
Do we start demanding that the police have “probable cause” prior to a detention? What then do we require for an arrest? “Beyond a reasonable doubt”?
And once we dispense with that, in the brave new Libertarian world, when may the police pat a suspect down for weapons? Only after an arrest has been affected? Or perhaps a conviction obtained?
We So-Cons don’t all imagine that we have all of the answers, and there are instances of police over-reach even from the conservative side of the aisle. BUT, I don’t think that you’ll get a lot of social conservatives complaining about the actual way that NYPD was conducting business, once they become familiar with the actual facts, and not the lefty hysterics on the NY city counsel and the “community” activists.
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