Another report critical of NYPD says minorities unfairly bore brunt of police enforcement

For the third time in a week, a report has highlighted the sharp disparity between arrests of white New Yorkers and minorities.

The Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP) said of 715 arraignments from 2022 it analyzed, 91% were for people of color.

The NYPD has repeatedly said it does not engage in racial profiling and that it makes many arrests based on descriptions provided by victims of crimes. It has also noted that more than 90% of murdered Blacks and Latinos are victimized by other Blacks and Latinos.

But Robert Gangi, PROP’s director, said that percentage cannot be true for all crimes.

He said neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, where he lives, are policed by fewer officers than those in minority areas where cops are under pressure to meet a quota and sometimes make illegal arrests just to meet that number.

He also said any notion that the racial disparities in enforcement change with a Black mayor, Eric Adams, and a Black police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, should be dispelled by now.

“There will be individual instances where that makes a difference,” Gangi said. “But across the board it doesn’t.”

In a statement, however, Adams noted his efforts when he was a cop to change the abusive policing he experienced growing up.

“I will both support our police officers who will help make our city safe again,” he said, “and hold zero tolerance for those who violate that sacred obligation.”

Last Tuesday, The News reported that the 4,153 street stops recorded by officers in the first three months of the year were the highest quarterly total since the last three months of 2015. Roughly 70% of those stopped are Blacks or Black Hispanics, the data shows. Another 23% are white Hispanic, and 6% are white.

Police also made many more motor vehicle stops the first three months of this year — 195,789, the data shows, a pace that would far surpass the 2022 total year number of 673,120.

Black and Latino drivers made up 62% of the total number of drivers stopped, the NYPD data shows — even though they comprise about 49% of vehicle commuters in the city, according to U.S. Census data cited by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Of the 4,892 arrests made following vehicle stops, 4,135 were of Blacks and Latinos — 86%.

The NYPD monitor recently reported that the department’s new anti-gun units were stopping people unconstitutionally at a rate higher than cops in other units.