Courts v. Cops

[Valin]

City Journal:

The legal war on the war on crime

Heather Mac Donald

Winter 2013

 

New York’s proactive style of policing is under assault from politicians and the media as never before. But the greatest threat lies in the courtroom, where three cases before a federal judge assert that the New York City Police Department’s practice of stopping, questioning, and sometimes frisking suspects is unconstitutional and racist. On January 8, the judge issued the first of her rulings in that trilogy of suits, holding that the NYPD routinely makes illegal trespass stops in the Bronx. The ruling was a bad enough blow for the NYPD in its own right, but it is even more disturbing as an augury of things to come. The decision makes clear that U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin will rule against the city in every stop-and-frisk case before her, decimating the police department’s ability to fight crime.

 

Ligon v. New York challenged a decades-long program that authorizes New York police officers to patrol private buildings for trespassers and other lawbreakers. The Trespass Affidavit Program (TAP) tries to give low-income tenants in high-crime areas the same protection against intruders that wealthy residents of doorman-guarded buildings enjoy. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), however, police officers routinely abuse their power under TAP by stopping and arresting minority residents and their guests on suspicion of trespass without any legal justification.

 

The NYCLU didn’t come close to proving its case. But the litigation’s most disturbing failure was its blindness to the realities of inner-city crime.

 

Debbie McBride has nothing but contempt for the ongoing litigation. McBride is a street-hardened building superintendent in the heart of the South Bronx zone targeted by the NYCLU. When asked about TAP, also known as the Clean Halls program, she doesn’t mince words. “I love it!” she roars. “I’m serious, I love it. Me being a woman, I feel safe. I can get up at 4 AM and start working.”

 

(Snip)