Judge orders NYPD pilot program on recording police encounters

The Manhattan federal judge overseeing NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices on Thursday ordered a pilot program to begin keeping records of all lower-level, police-initiated encounters with citizens that don’t rise to the level of a stop.

U.S. District Judge Annalisa Torres said the plan was proposed by a court-appointed community-input “facilitator” because of a decrease in reports of actual stops where police activate cameras, requiring additional data from all contacts to understand the “extent to which police are initiating encounters on the basis of race.”

She said the NYPD has opposed the idea as “neither practical nor feasible,” and a pilot program would help resolve differences.

The court has been overseeing stop-and-frisk procedures since a 2013 ruling that the NYPD was stopping people without sufficient cause and disproportionately targeting minorities.

Under the supervision of a court monitor, police contacts have been categorized in four different levels, and levels 1 and 2 — generally involving just questioning — do not have to be recorded.

Torres said there was concern that police were “confusing” those encounters with stops, which do have to be recorded. She said there should be a “mechanism” developed to electronically record the time, date and location of lower-level stops, and the facilitator also wanted data on age, gender, race and ethnicity.

She ordered a proposal for a pilot program by Sept. 13, and said the city will bear the cost.