By Jim Hoffer
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A new report is calling into question the legality of the NYPD's Stop and Frisk policy.
The study by a Columbia University law professor makes the claim that the highly-touted crime fighting tool is based on race, not crime.
It's a rather damning report that challenges the NYPD's claims that stopping and frisking hundreds of thousands of people every year is constitutional.
The findings claim the practice is actually targeting blacks and Latinos and yields few results.
To the NYPD, Its "Stop and Frisk" practice is one of its greatest crime fighting tools.
To many of those stopped, it seems like racial profiling.
Now, a new report by a Columbia University Law Professor finds race may drive the policy.
Professor Jeffrey Fagan analyzed 2.7 million stops made during a 6 year period and found police "often used race in lieu of reasonable suspicion" to make the stops.
7% of the time, data he says, shows police had no legal justification for the stops.
24% of the time, the stops lacked enough details to assess whether they were constitutional.
"That's a huge problem and means hundreds of thousands of people are having their rights violated," said Darius Charney, of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The Center for Constitutional Rights commissioned the study which also found that 50% of the time people were stopped for the vague reason of "furtive movements".
6% of the stops led to arrests and most surprising, in less than 1% of the stops were any guns found.
"A rate of .1% of the time finding an illegal gun on someone they stop really calls into question the effectiveness of this practice and really the purpose of it," Charney said.
"Had me against the wall and pat me down," said Emmanuel Candelario, a Fordham graduate student.
Earlier this year, Candelario told Eyewitness News how he had been stopped and frisked at least 10 times in the last five years.
"It's a really big problem, you feel unsafe when police are around because at any time you might get stopped frisked," Candelario said.
The NYPD insists "Stop and Frisk" has made the city one of the nation's safest.
"I am proud of the men and women of the NYPD, I know they're saving lives," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
The report is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights against the city.
The city is expected to come out with its own "Stop and Frisk" study in the coming weeks.
(Copyright ©2010 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
NY jury awards $17.5M to diabetic jailed sans meds
The Associated Press
updated 10/19/2010
NEW YORK — A jury ordered New York City on Tuesday to pay $17.5 million to a diabetic man who suffered a seizure after police refused to give him his insulin while he was in jail, the man's lawyer said.
Jose Vargas, 43, now lives in a nursing home confined to a wheelchair with diminished mental faculties and motor and coordination skills, his lawyer Seth Harris said after Tuesday's verdict.
"If a doctor was present in central booking (when Vargas was in custody) the city could have saved themselves all of this money," Harris said.
In a statement Tuesday, the city's lawyer department said they were disappointed with the verdict and expect to file an appeal based on "a number of legal and factual issues." It didn't cite those issues.
Harris said $10 million of the settlement was for Vargas' future nursing home care.
Police took away Jose Vargas' bag containing his insulin and needles when he was arrested in September 2006 on a felony charge of criminal sale of a controlled substance, Harris said. Vargas later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal facilitation of a drug sale, Harris said.
As police transported him to a police precinct and then to central booking in Brooklyn, Vargas complained to them that he needed the insulin, Harris said,
"He's complaining each and every step of the way that he needs his insulin," said Harris, who added that no one responded as 58 hours passed.
At central booking, "he becomes shaky, dehydrated and anxious," Harris said. "He has a diabetic seizure on the floor of his cell."
Vargas suffered additional seizures at the hospital, Harris said.
"Now he's in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and he's 43," Harris said.
updated 10/19/2010
NEW YORK — A jury ordered New York City on Tuesday to pay $17.5 million to a diabetic man who suffered a seizure after police refused to give him his insulin while he was in jail, the man's lawyer said.
Jose Vargas, 43, now lives in a nursing home confined to a wheelchair with diminished mental faculties and motor and coordination skills, his lawyer Seth Harris said after Tuesday's verdict.
"If a doctor was present in central booking (when Vargas was in custody) the city could have saved themselves all of this money," Harris said.
In a statement Tuesday, the city's lawyer department said they were disappointed with the verdict and expect to file an appeal based on "a number of legal and factual issues." It didn't cite those issues.
Harris said $10 million of the settlement was for Vargas' future nursing home care.
Police took away Jose Vargas' bag containing his insulin and needles when he was arrested in September 2006 on a felony charge of criminal sale of a controlled substance, Harris said. Vargas later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal facilitation of a drug sale, Harris said.
As police transported him to a police precinct and then to central booking in Brooklyn, Vargas complained to them that he needed the insulin, Harris said,
"He's complaining each and every step of the way that he needs his insulin," said Harris, who added that no one responded as 58 hours passed.
At central booking, "he becomes shaky, dehydrated and anxious," Harris said. "He has a diabetic seizure on the floor of his cell."
Vargas suffered additional seizures at the hospital, Harris said.
"Now he's in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and he's 43," Harris said.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
$18 Million to Man Wrongly Imprisoned
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: October 19, 2010
A Bronx man who was imprisoned for more than two decades on a rape conviction before being cleared by DNA evidence was awarded $18.5 million by a jury on Tuesday.
Enlarge This Image
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Alan Newton in 2006 after his release from prison. A jury awarded him $18.5 million from New York City on Tuesday.
The judgment, which came about four years after the man, Alan Newton, was released from prison, is one of the largest ever awarded to a wrongfully incarcerated person in New York City. Mr. Newton was convicted of rape, robbery and assault in 1985 — based largely on eyewitness testimony — and spent years fighting to have DNA evidence from the case located and tested after more advanced testing procedures became available.
A rape kit from the case was found in a Police Department warehouse in 2005 — about a decade after Mr. Newton and his lawyers had requested it — and subsequent testing showed that DNA collected from the victim did not match.
Mr. Newton, now 49, was released from prison in July 2006. On Tuesday, a jury ruled that the city had violated his constitutional rights, and found two police officers liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress for failing to produce Mr. Newton’s evidence when requested.
“I’m just real numb right now,” Mr. Newton said in an interview on Tuesday. “It hasn’t really sunk in. It’s so emotional. It’s something I’ve been fighting for the last four years, since I came home. I’m just glad things worked out at the end of the day.”
A spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department said the city was “disappointed” with the verdict, which was rendered in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and planned to appeal it.
Mr. Newton’s lawyer, John F. Schutty III, argued that the Police Department’s system for storing and keeping track of post-conviction evidence was so shoddy that the city showed a reckless disregard for his constitutional rights. Mr. Schutty pointed out that for years the city had been registering and tracking the movement of evidence strictly by paper and pen.
“Only this year are they attempting to introduce a bar-code system,” he said.
Mr. Newton’s claim was supported by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to free convicts through DNA evidence. It said that of about 50 people from New York City it had represented in the last five years, half had received the DNA evidence in their cases from the city. In the other cases, the city was unable to produce the evidence or explain what had happened to it.
“The City of New York,” Mr. Schutty said, “has been engaged in a pattern of failing to pay proper attention to their duties to preserve post-conviction criminal evidence and its associated paperwork.”
Since being released from prison, Mr. Newton has tried to catch up on lost time. He immediately enrolled as a full-time student at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and completed his studies over the next two years.
He now works as a research associate at the Black Male Initiative of the City University of New York, helping to recruit, retain and assist students to ensure they graduate from college, he said. And he recently took the law school admissions test and plans to apply to law schools this year. Eventually, he said, he would like to do public interest work, helping to prevent people in poor neighborhoods from suffering the fate that he did.
“I want to work with people that really need that legal assistance that’s just not there for them,” he said. “There are so many issues where people need competent counsel, and it’s just not out there. I think I’ll jump into it with both arms.”
Asked if he planned to celebrate his verdict, Mr. Newton said he was in no rush.
“There’ll be time for celebration, but there are some other things to take care of,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of patience in my life. I’ve learned not to rush anything. Good things take time. This decision took time, but it was worth every moment.”
Published: October 19, 2010
A Bronx man who was imprisoned for more than two decades on a rape conviction before being cleared by DNA evidence was awarded $18.5 million by a jury on Tuesday.
Enlarge This Image
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Alan Newton in 2006 after his release from prison. A jury awarded him $18.5 million from New York City on Tuesday.
The judgment, which came about four years after the man, Alan Newton, was released from prison, is one of the largest ever awarded to a wrongfully incarcerated person in New York City. Mr. Newton was convicted of rape, robbery and assault in 1985 — based largely on eyewitness testimony — and spent years fighting to have DNA evidence from the case located and tested after more advanced testing procedures became available.
A rape kit from the case was found in a Police Department warehouse in 2005 — about a decade after Mr. Newton and his lawyers had requested it — and subsequent testing showed that DNA collected from the victim did not match.
Mr. Newton, now 49, was released from prison in July 2006. On Tuesday, a jury ruled that the city had violated his constitutional rights, and found two police officers liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress for failing to produce Mr. Newton’s evidence when requested.
“I’m just real numb right now,” Mr. Newton said in an interview on Tuesday. “It hasn’t really sunk in. It’s so emotional. It’s something I’ve been fighting for the last four years, since I came home. I’m just glad things worked out at the end of the day.”
A spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department said the city was “disappointed” with the verdict, which was rendered in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and planned to appeal it.
Mr. Newton’s lawyer, John F. Schutty III, argued that the Police Department’s system for storing and keeping track of post-conviction evidence was so shoddy that the city showed a reckless disregard for his constitutional rights. Mr. Schutty pointed out that for years the city had been registering and tracking the movement of evidence strictly by paper and pen.
“Only this year are they attempting to introduce a bar-code system,” he said.
Mr. Newton’s claim was supported by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to free convicts through DNA evidence. It said that of about 50 people from New York City it had represented in the last five years, half had received the DNA evidence in their cases from the city. In the other cases, the city was unable to produce the evidence or explain what had happened to it.
“The City of New York,” Mr. Schutty said, “has been engaged in a pattern of failing to pay proper attention to their duties to preserve post-conviction criminal evidence and its associated paperwork.”
Since being released from prison, Mr. Newton has tried to catch up on lost time. He immediately enrolled as a full-time student at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and completed his studies over the next two years.
He now works as a research associate at the Black Male Initiative of the City University of New York, helping to recruit, retain and assist students to ensure they graduate from college, he said. And he recently took the law school admissions test and plans to apply to law schools this year. Eventually, he said, he would like to do public interest work, helping to prevent people in poor neighborhoods from suffering the fate that he did.
“I want to work with people that really need that legal assistance that’s just not there for them,” he said. “There are so many issues where people need competent counsel, and it’s just not out there. I think I’ll jump into it with both arms.”
Asked if he planned to celebrate his verdict, Mr. Newton said he was in no rush.
“There’ll be time for celebration, but there are some other things to take care of,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of patience in my life. I’ve learned not to rush anything. Good things take time. This decision took time, but it was worth every moment.”
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
D.C. police testify about 2002 World Bank arrests
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Former D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey and other top officials have been summoned to federal court this week to account for the loss of key evidence in a case of possible police misconduct more than eight years after the unfounded arrests of hundreds of protesters roiled the city.
Fifteen top police officials and lawyers have paraded through the courthouse since Tuesday in hearings that could lead to a criminal probe. They have tried to explain under oath how the city's preeminent law enforcement agency could mishandle evidence of its own conduct.
The hearings before U.S. Magistrate John F. Facciola, which will continue this week, underscore how the mass arrests of World Bank and IMF protesters in 2002 are still reverberating in the city.
Lawsuits related to the arrests have cost taxpayers more than $10 million in settlements of complaints that police officers, without warning, swept up demonstrators, commuters and tourists three blocks from the White House, leaving some hogtied wrist-to-ankle or detained for up to a day.
The most authoritative police evidence - video surveillance tapes, radio recordings and a master log of police command actions of the day's chaotic events at Pershing Park - disappeared or were mysteriously edited, according to evidence uncovered in civil suits.
The hearings have not been flattering. The officials who then managed the District's command center, Stephen J. Gaffigan and Neil L. Trugman, denied testimony by a subordinate that they had received 13 paper copies and the location of a computer file logging police actions during the protests. Those vanished.
Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham, who said he ordered the arrests with Ramsey's approval, said he felt no obligation to preserve any records other than his own.
Longtime police general counsel Terrence D. Ryan and his deputy, Ronald B. Harris, said they never explicitly told officials to preserve potential evidence, saying that they assumed it was common practice or that standing policies would suffice - deviating from typical legal practice.
In his turn on the stand, Ramsey, who left the District at the end of 2006 and who is now police commissioner in Philadelphia, said that "the ultimate responsibility for everything in the department falls under the chief's office."
Still, he said, he never asked anyone to preserve evidence. "There are hundreds and hundreds of lawsuits, so the general counsel is the one who I turned to to handle complaints when they come in," Ramsey said.
For Ramsey, the extraordinary judicial proceedings may threaten to dim the luster of his eight-year tenure as chief. When the arrests happened, he gave conflicting statements about whether he had ordered them before stepping forward with a public apology.
Trust in government
In ordering Facciola to conduct the special inquiry, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the District and its lawyers could face "painful" financial, professional or legal sanctions.
Sullivan said the department's conduct raised the question of "when, if ever, can anyone trust their government?" And Facciola said that witnesses could face criminal investigation by the Justice Department for perjury, obstruction of justice or destruction of evidence.
Carl Messineo, founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice, called the case an important example of court oversight of the $500 million-a-year D.C. police department and its 4,000-plus officers.
"This is a proceeding about restoring personal accountability and making clear if there are persons identifiable as being individually culpable for the loss of evidence, that they be made to answer for that misconduct," said Messineo, who has secured a separate $8.25 million class-action settlement for 386 plaintiffs.
He added, "If this is occurring in this case, when they know everyone is watching, what is going on unearthed, undiscovered in all the other cases - which are perhaps low-profile but life-altering cases - for people entering the justice system?"
New technology
In Facciola's second-floor courtroom in U.S. District Court, witnesses have cast a window back to the anxious days of fall 2002, when memories of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the anthrax scare and protests aimed at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were fresh and police in Washington took aggressive steps to maintain order. Police infiltrated protest groups, ramped up the use of closed-circuit TV cameras and bridled at Internet boasts by anarchists that they would shut down the capital.
But they also struggled to introduce new technology and provide resources to a three-lawyer shop facing 200 cases at any given time.
Sgt. Douglas A. Jones said Trugman asked him to provide - by written note and not e-mail, which would have left an electronic trail - the computer address of the master log. He said that one version of the log might have accidentally been overwritten during the D.C. area sniper case, which erupted days later.
But Jones said that he found it inexplicable that it did not remain on a back-up server and that he told technical employees to store all data on it before it was replaced years later.
Then-police inspector James O. Crane has given contradictory explanations of gaps in police radio recordings at critical moments during arrests. And police officials have struggled to explain how one of the few videotapes they did produce jumps back and forth in time, given their account that it was unedited.
On Friday, Harris said that it "was a mistake on my part" that Ramsey and top city lawyers misled the D.C. Council in November 2003 in response to a subpoena, saying that a less-detailed report was the master police log, which Harris knew was missing.
Police did not report the error or launch a deeper computer forensic search because, Harris said, he did not realize the mistake until a council investigation was over. Thomas L. Koger, the D.C. assistant attorney general who was assigned off the case because of breakdowns in turning over evidence, is set to appear Monday.
The D.C. Council approved new limits on police practices in 2005, ending "trap and detain" tactics in demonstrations and requiring training to protect free speech rights and retain related evidence.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Abuse lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office settled for $600,000
by Yvonne Wingett and JJ Hensley
A man who accused a Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy of abuse and racial discrimination over a 2009 traffic stop has won a $600,000 settlement.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved the settlement with no discussion. Supervisors Don Stapley, Fulton Brock and Max Wilson OK'd the settlement; the two other supervisors were absent.
Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre said resolving the claim now was a good business decision for the county and good for the Nido family.
The suit highlighted the Sheriff's Office's anti-immigrant reputation and accuse Sheriff Joe Arpaio of failing to properly train deputies how to interact with minority suspects.
In February 2009, Armando L. Nido was arrested after Deputy James Carey tried to pull him over in Tempe for a broken taillight, according to a notice of claim filed with the county and other public records.
Nido stopped and started his car several times during the course of Carey's traffic stop, which is common for drunken-driving suspects, MacIntyre said. Nido claimed he was afraid to stop because of the "pattern and practice" of sheriff's deputies to treat Hispanic residents differently because of their ethinicity. When Nido finally came to a complete stop in front of his home, Carey tried to block Nido's car and hit the suspect with his squad car, pinning Nido underneath it.
"That's when everything turned into an exercise in poor judgment," MacIntyre said. "Blocking the vehicle is one thing, running the person over is another. I'm glad that we could resolve this at this point in time. There's no reason to continue litigation."
Nido remained pinned until paramedics arrived, according to the complaint, and the situation drew Nido's mother and brothers out of the house. They also claimed they suffered physical and emotional injuries from the scuffle that took place with Carey.
Carey has resigned from the Sheriff's Office, a Sheriff's chief deputy has said.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Strip-searching every jail inmate goes too far
A federal appeals court recently ruled that corrections officers in a county jail can strip-search everyone, even low-level offenders who don’t pose a risk. This misguided decision is a big setback to a class-action lawsuit by former inmates, which had received support from five of New Jersey
What it means in practice: Say you forget to pay an outstanding traffic ticket, and have the misfortune of being arrested and taken to county jail. You will be brought into a private room with a corrections officer of the same gender and ordered to take off all your clothes. As you stand naked, you must open your mouth and lift your tongue. The officer checks under your armpits and the bottoms of your feet.If you are a man, you must lift your testicles so the officer can look beneath them. Women must lift their breasts. All inmates are told to squat and cough.
It can be a traumatic and humiliating experience, and the state Attorney General’s Office should put a stop to it. Strip-searches shouldn’t be imposed on defendants accused of misdemeanors without reasonable suspicion that they pose a threat.
That’s what a federal judge ruled last year, calling it unconstitutional to strip-search inmates without cause. The case in point was Albert Florence, 34, of Bordentown, a finance director who sued after being picked up for an outstanding traffic warrant and strip-searched — twice — before authorities realized he had already paid the fine two years before. Oops.
But the recent appellate decision overturned the judge’s ruling, concluding officers can strip-search everyone to keep jails safe.
That’s ridiculous. As the federal judge who opposed the practice pointed out, “a hypothetical priest or minister arrested for allegedly skimming the Sunday collection would be subjected to the same degrading procedure as a gang member arrested on an allegation of drug charges.”
Strip searches are justified for dangerous inmates or those arrested on drug charges. They shouldn’t be a catch-all welcome to the county jail.
Puerto Rico cop charged with murder in shooting
By MIKE MELIA
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A rookie police officer was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting an unarmed bystander last week while responding to a robbery inside a Burger King.
Investigators from the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department also have been asked by the governor to look into the shooting as part of a two-year-old probe into an alleged pattern of abuses by the Puerto Rico Police Department.
The defendant, Abimalet Natal Rivera, allegedly opened fire Sept. 22 after arriving at the restaurant and hearing another officer's gun go off by accident. One of the bullets struck 22-year-old Jose Vega in the head.
At the time he was shot, Vega was giving information about the robbers to other officers who were already on the scene, witnesses said.
Natal, who joined the force nine months ago, is charged with second-degree murder and a weapons violation, local Justice Department spokesman Fidel Rodriguez said. He faces 15 to 25 years in prison if convicted of the murder charge.
The shooting has renewed criticism in this U.S. Caribbean territory that police are poorly trained and resort to violence too quickly.
The federal civil rights investigation began in July 2008 and is focused on allegations that police officers engage in excessive force, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and discriminatory policing, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa. The probe could lead to civil litigation to push for reforms.
One of the most notorious cases involved an officer who in 2007 stood over an unarmed man and shot him three times — once in the head. That crime was captured on video and the officer was convicted of first-degree murder, but critics say other examples of abuse are commonplace even if they do not always make headlines.
William Ramirez, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico, said in a case last week a man was allegedly beaten inside a patrol car and then again at a police precinct.
"If true, these are very serious charges that highlight the impermissible and unlawful conduct that the ACLU has for the past six years been highlighting" before courts in the U.S. and Puerto Rico as well as the United Nations, Ramirez said.
In response to the fatal shooting of Vega, Gov. Luis Fortuno said he would appoint a former judge to monitor the police department.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A rookie police officer was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting an unarmed bystander last week while responding to a robbery inside a Burger King.
Investigators from the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department also have been asked by the governor to look into the shooting as part of a two-year-old probe into an alleged pattern of abuses by the Puerto Rico Police Department.
The defendant, Abimalet Natal Rivera, allegedly opened fire Sept. 22 after arriving at the restaurant and hearing another officer's gun go off by accident. One of the bullets struck 22-year-old Jose Vega in the head.
At the time he was shot, Vega was giving information about the robbers to other officers who were already on the scene, witnesses said.
Natal, who joined the force nine months ago, is charged with second-degree murder and a weapons violation, local Justice Department spokesman Fidel Rodriguez said. He faces 15 to 25 years in prison if convicted of the murder charge.
The shooting has renewed criticism in this U.S. Caribbean territory that police are poorly trained and resort to violence too quickly.
The federal civil rights investigation began in July 2008 and is focused on allegations that police officers engage in excessive force, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and discriminatory policing, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa. The probe could lead to civil litigation to push for reforms.
One of the most notorious cases involved an officer who in 2007 stood over an unarmed man and shot him three times — once in the head. That crime was captured on video and the officer was convicted of first-degree murder, but critics say other examples of abuse are commonplace even if they do not always make headlines.
William Ramirez, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico, said in a case last week a man was allegedly beaten inside a patrol car and then again at a police precinct.
"If true, these are very serious charges that highlight the impermissible and unlawful conduct that the ACLU has for the past six years been highlighting" before courts in the U.S. and Puerto Rico as well as the United Nations, Ramirez said.
In response to the fatal shooting of Vega, Gov. Luis Fortuno said he would appoint a former judge to monitor the police department.
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