Judge Rules NYPD "Stop and Frisk" Unconstitutional, Cites "Indirect Racial Profiling"

In a historic ruling, a federal court has ruled the controversial "stop-and-frisk" tactics used by New York City Police officers are unconstitutional. In a harshly critical decision, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin said police had relied on what she called a "policy of indirect racial profiling" that led officers to routinely stop "blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white." Since 2002, the police department has conducted more than five million stop and frisks. According to the police department's own reports, nearly nine out of 10 New Yorkers stopped and frisked have been innocent. In her almost 200-page order Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote, "No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life ... Targeting young black and Hispanic men for stops based on the alleged criminal conduct of other young black or Hispanic men violates the bedrock principles of equality." She also appointed a federal monitor to oversee reforms, with input from community members as well as police. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reacted angrily to to the ruling, and accused the judge of denying the city a fair trial. We're joined by Sunita Patel, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and co-counsel on the case. "This is a victory for so many hundreds of thousands of people who have been illegally stopped and frisked over the last decade," Patel says.