Stop-And-Frisk Lawyers Cry Foul On Social Distancing Policing
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — NYPD enforcement of social distancing guidelines bears unfortunate echoes of "stop-and-frisk" tactics and should be probed, a group of civil rights attorneys argued.
Emergency filings in federal court this week aim to put a moratorium on social distancing enforcement in New York City.
They argue NYPD's disproportionate enforcement of black and Latino people over social distancing complaints potentially violate a 2013 court order that halted the controversial stop-and-frisk practice.
"The NYPD’s approach to social-distancing enforcement is stop and frisk 2.0," said Darius Charney, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a statement. "But since the court ruling in 2013, the NYPD has continued to stop and frisk minorities at an alarmingly disproportionate rate. This latest activity, under the veil of social-distance enforcement, shows there is a racist double standard happening across the boroughs and that is it business as usual for the NYPD."
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Social distancing summons and arrest data from NYPD has consistently shown communities of color bore the brunt of enforcement.
Only one white person was arrested for a social distancing violation in Brooklyn out of 40 people total who went behind bars, for example. Videos of violent arrests in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the city mostly feature people of color facing police attention over social distancing. Meanwhile, wealthy, largely-white areas like Park Slope didn't see a single ticket or summons despite hundreds of social distancing complaints.
The 79th Precinct covering Bed-Stuy had 10 tickets over social distancing during that time — and other Brooklyn neighborhoods had many more.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea has denied the enforcement is racist.
The stop-and-frisk attorneys' filings are the latest call for increased scrutiny of social distancing enforcement tactics.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the Legal Aid Society and the Beldock, Levine, & Hoffman law firm asked for an investigation, a moratorium and documents on NYPD social distancing practices.
Those helped shepherd two class action cases that ultimately found stop-and-frisk unconstitutional. They wrote social distancing enforcement's parallels with stop-and-frisk potentially violate the order.
A memo in support of the filing can be read here.
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This article originally appeared on the Bed-Stuy Patch
