Blacks and Latinos make up about 80% stopped and questioned by NYPD, study finds

BY CHRISTINA BOYLE and TINA MOORE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Friday, January 16th 2009, 10:38 AM
Kyte/Getty/Getty Images
As the stats come in for 2008, the NYPD is on pace to have stopped and frisked 500,000 people - 80% of them black or Latino.
The NYPD is on pace to stop and question a record half a million citizens this year - about 80% of them black or Latino, a new report says.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, citing NYPD data obtained in a suit, said the vast majority of those stopped and questioned in 2005 through June 2008 weren't charged with any crime.
In 2007, for instance, the last complete year of data, cops arrested only 5.8% of the 472,096 people they stopped (27,632).
"The New York City Police Department continues to prey on African-American and Latino communities in New York City," Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said.
The center obtained half of the 2008 data but projected that 543,982 people will be stopped in the entire year if the NYPD maintained its pace.
Cops made fewer than 400,000 stops in 2005.
"The problem actually is getting worse," CCR lawyer Darius Charney said.
Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD's chief spokesman, said the number of minorities who were singled out under the policy is consistent with overall descriptions by race provided by victims and surviving witnesses of crime.
He pointed to a RAND Corp. study that found no racial profiling in its examination, "and warned against the kind of simplistic comparisons made by the center."
"Their assertions do not constitute a study of the data, but a restatement of accusations in its lawsuit," he added.
St. John's University student David Ourlicht, 21, sees it differently. He was stopped on the street three times by cops - once at gunpoint - and never charged with a crime.
The Manhattanite, who is half black and half white, was among 1 million people snagged in the NYPD's stop-and-frisk net since 2005, data released Thursday show.
"It's something that I have to deal with every day," Ourlicht said. "I can't trust the people that are supposed to protect me and that's scary." With Benjamin Lesser
tmoore@nydailynews.