NYPD teams engaging in ‘unconstitutional policing’ with widespread stop-and-frisk: report

Special units of the New York Police Department engaged in “unconstitutional policing” by relying on the “stop and frisk” tactic for too many people without justification, according to a new audit from a court-appointed monitor.

The NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety Teams (NST) deployed in the last 14 months “appear to be stopping, frisking, and searching individuals at an unsatisfactory level of compliance” despite training and experience,” the report from NYPD Monitor Myland Denerstein and her team reads. 

“Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully,” Denerstein said. “At the precinct level, sergeants, lieutenants, and commanding officers fail to identify and correct the unconstitutional policing.”

The audit found, based on the stop reports, that more than 97 percent of the people encountered were Black or Hispanic. Of 230 total car stops, just two resulted in weapons recovery.

NST officers had reasonable suspicion for only 69 percent of the stops and 73 percent of the frisks assessed in the audit and had a legal basis for only 63 percent of the searches assessed, according to the report.

In one police precinct, just 41 percent of stops, 32 percent of frisks and 26 percent of searches by NST officers were lawful.

A spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said city officials “have serious concerns” with Denerstein’s methodology and that they only learned of her findings after news outlets reported on them. The spokesperson added that shootings have fallen since the NST was created, according to the Associated Press.

Adams last year relaunched the controversial anti-crime units after an earlier version had been disbanded back in 2020.

Some commands within the NST units, which wear modified uniforms and drive unmarked cars, “do appear to be engaging in constitutional stops, frisks, and searches consistently” and “should serve as models for other commands that are performing inadequately,” the audit notes.

“The Department must focus on improving compliance levels,” Denerstein wrote. “Clearly, it can be done. The law requires no less.”

In 2013, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated the civil rights of Black and Hispanic New Yorkers with stop-and-frisk tactics.

The Associated Press contributed.