Report: NYPD stop and frisks fell 93% in 6 years after lawsuit settlement

NYPD stop and frisks plunged by 93% in the six years after a federal judge found the practice unconstitutional and racially discriminatory, according to a report released Wednesday.

In 2013, city cops used the practice 191,851 times, court-appointed special monitor Peter Zimroth said in the report. That was the year U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan ruled that the NYPD targeted minorities for stop and frisks.

By 2019, according to Zimroth's report — his 13th assessing of NYPD reforms on street encounters — stop and frisks had fallen to 13,459. In 2020, city cops' use of stop and frisks dropped to just under 10,000, according to NYPD data.

Despite plummeting numbers over the six years, the report found that Blacks were stopped on the street 55% of the time in that same period, and Hispanics, 28%, about the same as averages before Scheindlin's ruling.

Zimroth's report attributed at least part of the drop to reforms implemented by the NYPD but pointed to "substantial evidence" over the years of NYPD officers failing to submit reports documenting all their stops from 2016 to 2019, which he said undermined efforts to credibly assess those years.

"These undocumented stops may undermine the reliability of statistical analyses to identify racially disparate stop report patterns and practices in NYC," the report said.

The number of stops involving whites averaged about 10% between 2013 and 2019. About 5.5% of Asians were stopped by city cops in those six years, the report showed.

Estimates for underreporting ranged from about 7%, according to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, to as much as 39% from an earlier experiment involving NYPD cops wearing body cameras, the report said. As a result, Zimroth’s team of analysts had to make statistical adjustments in determining the racial and ethnic disparities that may exists in frisks, more intrusive searches, issuance of summonses, use of force and arrests.

Attorneys for plaintiffs who filed the original lawsuit challenging the department's use of stop and frisk noted that the proportion of Blacks and Hispanics subjected to the practice — combined, nearly 80% — remained unchanged from years ago.

"This latest monitor’s report shows that the reports of the demise of race-based stop and frisk in New York City were greatly exaggerated," said Darius Charney, an attorney with the Center for constitutional Rights, in a statement.

NYPD Chief Matthew Pontillo said the report was a positive development. The proportion of stops within racial groups doesn’t match their percentage in the population, he said, but is in line with reports of victimization.

"We are very happy with this, it is very encouraging, this is what we have been working over several years now," said Pontillo, in charge of risk management for the department.

The report stated that while disparities in rate of frisks, searches, summonses and arrests also diminished over time among racial and ethnic groups, adjustments for unreported stops made it more likely that Blacks and Hispanics were subject to police actions in some categories.

For instance, the likelihood of frisks for Blacks was 8 to 14% higher between 2016 to 2019, compared to whites, while for Hispanics the difference for those three years was between 5 and 7%.

Despite such possible disparities, the report didn’t make any finding of bias in police actions.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.