They'll stop "certain people" if they're standing on the corner, waiting for takeout.
Arias said that he and his partner saw Lino and another man standing on the street corner and after they drove around the block, they were still standing on the corner! ... Lino went into the Chinese restaurant behind him. The officers responded by stopping and frisking both of them. They found nothing, made no arrest and issued no summons. -- CCR Floyd v NYC updates
They'll stop "them" if "they" make "furtive movements."
Officers did more than 4 million stop and frisks across the city between 2004 and last year, according to what Columbia professor Jeffrey Fagan told a judge in the trial of the New York City Police Department's stop-and-frisk program... Fagan said that in more than half the stop, question and frisk forms he examined, police checked off furtive movements as the reason for a stop. -- NY1
And if "one of those people" put their hands in their pockets because it's cold, they'll stop, question and frisk them too.
As McDonald was crossing the street walking home one night after leaving his mother’s house, an unmarked van pulled up in front of him, and a group of officers got out and stopped and frisked him... According to ((Officer)) French, he stopped and frisked McDonald because he had his hands in his pocket and there was a "suspicious bulge."
"Cold that night- wasn't it?" asked the Judge, referring to why McDonald's hands would be in his pockets. "Yes," French replied. The audience laughed. -- CCR Floyd v NYC updates
But of course it's no laughing matter. When certain classes of people can and are stopped repeatedly at the whim of any police officer then you know that what Ray Kelly, NYPD Police Commissioner
is reported to have said by State Senator Eric Adams is the underlying truth, whether he actually said it in so many words or not.
Adams says Kelly responded that "he targeted or focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that any time they leave their homes they could be targeted by police."
The stoppers are the NYPD. The stoppees are (almost always) young men of color.
And now the stoppers are (for once) on trial. For several weeks the New York City Stop & Frisk Trial
Floyd v New York City has been ongoing. Day after day new indignities and absurdities, unconstitutional and unconscionable actions, arrogant and ignorant attitudes by NYPD have been revealed.
Two friends standing waiting for their take-out order outside a restaurant is a completely unremarkable scene in the life of a city. But in the eyes of officers working for a performance-goals-obsessed NYPD and armed with a "description" that included just about every young Black New Yorker, Clive Lino and his friend became suspects.
I would like you to imagine these sorts of things happening to fifty year old white men in suits. Picture a Wall Street banker after a long hard day figuring out how to foreclose on another thousand families coming out into the street midwinter with his hands in his pockets, only to be rolled up on by a bevy of NYPD demanding to know what that "suspicious bulge" is all about. Hard to even conceive of, right?
That's why they call it racial profiling and cultural stereotyping. That's why Judge Scheindlin must stop it.
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Other Stop & Frisk on Trial and Related Diaries:
Is That a Gun in Your Pocket or Are You Just Terrified to See Me?
Stop & Frisk on Trial. 'Floyd v City of New York', Class Action against Stop&Frisk, Began Yesterday.
Stop & Frisk on Trial.
Stop & Frisk on Trial: NYPD Chief Kelly Admitted Cops Target Blacks 2 'Instill Fear' Says State Sen.
Mr. "Stop & Frisk" Comes to Oakland.
'Stop & Frisk' Dealt Major Blow in NYC by Federal Judge."