NYPD commander defends stop-and-frisk quotas at trial

A top-ranking NYPD commander on Friday forcefully defended efforts to get cops to increase their stop-and-frisk activity as a legitimate management tool at a federal trial challenging the use of the tactic.

Dep. Chief Michael Marino, the NYPD's second in command on Staten Island who previously held the same post in Brooklyn North, said that earlier in his career he had imposed "performance goals" for street stops and arrests in his East New York precinct to light a fire under a lagging patrol force.

"The level of activity and the level of performance . . . was so low that it was a detriment to the community," Marino testified in federal court in Manhattan. "It was doing nothing to improve the conditions in one of the most crime-ridden precincts in the entire city."

The trial focuses on claims that the NYPD conducts street stops without the "reasonable suspicion" required by the Supreme Court and focuses them on minorities. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin is considering whether to rein in the tactic.

The plaintiffs contend that "quotas" flowing from headquarters through precinct commanders are used to pressure cops into making illegal stops. An arbitrator ruled in 2006 that Marino had imposed illegal quotas for traffic tickets in the 75th precinct in East New York.

Marino testified that when he arrived in East New York, officers were generally writing only five summonses a month.

"They set their own quotas," he testified. "They were driving by things and not addressing them. It was almost a malfeasance."

He set goals of 10 summonses, two "good stops" and one arrest per month. He said officers' level of activity was one of the factors in their job evaluation, but insisted that they were not illegal quotas and did not encourage bad stops in a precinct rife with crime.

"I set a standard that said do your jobs or suffer the consequences," Marino testified. "I don't know if I'd call that pressure . . . The numbers were so low, I could do it in one day."