Yesterday brought the news that the number of stop 'n' frisks performed by by the NYPD broke the 600k barrier for the first time. But it isn't all bad news. Dig a little deeper into the stats and there is a silver lining, of sorts: while the number of stops indeed went up, the number of summons they produced went down by 19.7% in the last quarter of 2010. Of the 144,598 people stopped between October and December police only issued 9,170 summons. Yay?
According to the News this was partially due to concerns stemming from a January 2010 lawsuit alleging tenants and visitors at housing projects are more likely to get stopped and hit with trespassing arrests. Fearing more lawsuits in September Commissioner Kelly issued new rules for patrolling public housing, leading to 25% less summonses by housing officers in the last quarter of the year and 6% fewer stops.
A Manhattan supervisor the paper spoke to says "it was decided that too many summonses were given out, particularly in public housing, so cops were told not to hand out so many summonses, especially trespass." Meanwhile, the NYCLU's suggestions for what to do if you are stopped by the police remain as useful today as they did yesterday.
