While Mayor Bloomberg has been mayor, the NYPD has carried out over 5 million stop-and-frisks. Analysis by the ACLU of official police data found that over 86 percent of the stops were of black or Latino individuals. The analysis of police data also revealed that 88 percent of the stops did not result in an arrest or summons (and of course an even smaller proportion ever lead to a prosecution, or conviction). The number of innocent people stopped alone serves as ample riposte to Kelly's suggestion that any demographic is "understopped."

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This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

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New York City voters, by a substantial 66 - 25 percent margin, support creating the position of inspector general to independently monitor the Police Department... Support ranges from 53 - 38 percent among white voters to 77 - 13 percent among Hispanic voters and 78 - 13 percent among black voters, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds... Support is 51 - 42 percent among Republicans and 55 - 35 percent among voters over 55 years old. Voters in every other political, gender, age and income groups support the NYPD inspector general idea by 60 percent or more.

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State Sen. Eric Adams, a retired NYPD captain, took the stand Monday in the landmark Floyd vs. City of New York federal trial, which challenges the constitutionality of the racially skewed stop-and-frisk tactic. Adams told the court about a 2010 meeting between Kelly and New York's then-Gov. David Patterson. Adams, also present at the meeting, testified that the commissioner had expressly stated that black and Latino men should be targeted in police stops. Kelly, according to the city's attorney, has flatly denied making such claims.

Ryan Devereaux reported for the Guardian:

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I don't personally agree that this logic is a convincing justification for the American Police State, and when I hear such arguments, I inevitably find myself confused by the contradiction of police-state proponents proposing to curtail freedom in order to protect it. But whether or not you subscribe to the police-state tautology, you have to admit there is more than a bit of hypocrisy at work when those who forward the Big Brother logic simultaneously insist such logic shouldn't apply to them or the governmental agencies they oversee.

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This month, NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk policy -- which entails officers regularly stopping predominantly black and Latino men and frisking them for weapons and drugs -- went on trial in federal Court. The class-action lawsuit, Floyd v. City of New York, challenges the NYPD policy on the basis that it violates the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, and the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the NYPD's own data show hundreds of thousands of unconstitutional stops in the past three years alone, and expert analysis of their data -- controlling for crime, neighborhood and patterns of police deployment -- has found that the mitigating factor in NYPD stops is race.

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The teen was reportedly stopped on the street in Harlem when he reached into his pants' waistband. The two officers that stopped him claimed to have been searching for a firearm, but Almonor was found to be carrying no weapons. He was nonetheless handcuffed, taunted and taken to the stationhouse.

Meanwhile, as Ryan Devereaux reported for the Guardian, an internal NYPD memo sent to commanding officers earlier this month "amounts to an admission that the [stop-and-frisk] program is deeply flawed. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the class action lawsuit against the city, objected to the memo being entered into evidence. The group argued that civil rights groups have been pushing for police to issue such directives for years; the release of such a memo on the eve of the landmark trial has thus raised some eyebrows. Via Devereaux:

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First, though, ABC's "This Week," the only one of the big three shows this morning to have another idiotic debate about budgets, began with George Stephanopoulos actually bragging -- bragging! -- that he had both Jim Messina and Karl Rove. Oh boy, two campaign strategists! When I am looking for well-considered and thoughtful commentary on national issues, I always turn to people who are good at managing political campaigns.

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While Mayor Bloomberg's administration has long maintained that independent oversight of the NYPD is not necessary, his ally, City Council Speaker (and mayoral candidate) Christine Quinn announced Tuesday that lawmakers had reached a deal to install an inspector general to monitor the vast police department. The call for an inspector general, who could have investigative powers and the ability to issue subpoenas, followed mounting evidence of widespread discriminatory policing, both in the form of stop-and-frisks (over 86 percent of which target black and Latino New Yorkers) and the NYPD's spying on Muslim communities. For a careful politician like Quinn to support such a proposal reflects a shifting political tide towards reform.

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In the recording, a delegate from the police union can be heard saying that an agreement of a quota of 20 summonses and one arrest per month: “I spoke to the CO [commanding officer] for about an hour-and-a-half... 20-and-1. 20-and-1 is what the union is backing up… They spoke to the [Union] trustees. And that’s what they want, they want 20-and-1.” (20-and-1 means 20 summonses and one arrest per month.)

The Nation reported that, although illegal, there is reason to believe that a broad, functioning quota system is in place:

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Matt Sledge at HuffPo reported that David Floyd, the lead plaintiff in the case, and Harlem teenager Devin Alomonor both took the stand Monday. Both men have been stopped and frisked by the NYPD. Floyd, a medical student in the Bronx, was stopped twice by police -- once just walking along the sidewalk, once helping a neighbor into their apartment. Sledge noted that the city's lawyer, Morgan Kunz, offered a "preview of the city's courtroom strategy" in her cross-examinations of the two men:

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As the New York Times noted, the class-action "claims to represent 'hundreds of thousands if not millions of people' who experienced 'suspicionless and race-based stops' by the city’s police officers." The NYCLU noted last week that the NYPD under Mayor Bloomberg have carried out 5 million stop and searches, over 86 percent of which on black or Latino individuals.

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Police have made about 5 million stops of New Yorkers in the past decade, mostly black and Hispanic men. The trial, set to begin Monday, will include testimony from a dozen people who say they were targeted because of their race and from police whistleblowers who say they were forced into making slipshod stops by bosses who were too focused on numbers.

"When we say stop, question and frisk, we're not talking about a brief inconvenience on the way to work or school," said Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the lead attorney on the case. "We're talking about a frightening, humiliating experience that has happened to many folks."

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has said in earlier rulings that she is deeply concerned about stop and frisk, is not being asked to ban the tactic, since it has been found to be legal. But she does have the power to order reforms, which could bring major changes to how the nation's largest police force and other departments use the tactic.

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Via the NYCLU:

“This disturbing milestone is a slap in the face to New Yorkers who cherish the right to walk down the street without being interrogated or even thrown up against the wall by the police,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “The NYPD’s routine abuse of stop-and-frisks is a tremendous waste of police resources, it sows mistrust between officers and the communities they serve, and it routinely violates fundamental rights. A walk to the subway, corner deli or school should not carry the assumption that you will be confronted by police, but that’s the disturbing reality for young men of color in New York City.”

To stop a person lawfully, a police officer must have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.

This year the racist stop-and-frisk practices have come under increasing scrutiny. Monday will see the beginning of a landmark trial -- a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk practices. As HuffPo's Matt Sledge noted, the lawyers bringing the suit against the police believe it will be the "trial of the century."

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However, New Yorkers did show support for stop-and-frisk's most staunch defender, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly:

New York City voters approve 66 - 26 percent of the job Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is doing and approve 61 - 31 percent of the job police are doing in general... voters say 32 - 21 percent that they are more likely rather than less likely to vote for a candidate who supports keeping Kelly as police commissioner.

The NYPD has come under increasing pressure from civil liberties and community groups over stop-and-frisk and the disproportionate targeting of young black and Latino men. Three ongoing lawsuits have been brought by civil rights groups this year challenging the constitutionality of the practice -- legal efforts that Commissioner Kelly has vehemently opposed.

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Crucially, this is not an end to marijuana arrests, or the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk policies that usually precede them. Nor does Bloomberg's announcement bring New Yorkers closer to legalization.

Harry Levine, professor of sociology at CUNY and longtime researcher into marijuana arrests and policy, noted that based on news reports from Bloomberg's speech, "some readers may conclude that now police will just be giving out tickets. That is not accurate." In an email, Levine detailed exactly what the new policy means for marijuana arrests:

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Writing in the Guardian, Ryan Devereaux details the contents of the Graham family lawsuit:

At over 100 pages in length, the Graham family lawsuit paints a picture of a chaotic scene the afternoon Ramarley was killed. It alleges that after forcing his way into the Graham home, Haste shot the unarmed teenager in the chest in his bathroom, as his six-year-old brother and 58-year-old grandmother, Patricia Hartley, looked on.

"Why did you shoot him, why you killed him?" Hartley cried out after Haste fired, the suit claims. "Get the fuck away before I have to shoot you, too," Haste is said to have replied as he shoved Graham's 85-pound grandmother into a vase, the suit alleges.

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U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled Tuesday that suspicion-less stops in Bronx buildings in designated high crime areas can go on while the city appeals her decision. "The opinion acknowledges at the outset that many of the questions raised by stop-and-frisk are not easily answered and that it may be difficult to say where, precisely, to draw the line between constitutional and unconstitutional police encounters," read Sheindlin's decision.

Her ruling in early January had been celebrated by civil liberties groups like the NYCLU, who brought the suit against the police over searches carried out during sweeps of “Clean Halls” apartments. Operation Clean Halls, established in the 1991, gives police permission to stop and search individuals in and around New York apartment buildings in high crime areas. In 2011,  according to the NYCLU , police stopped 1,137 of the 1,857 “Clean Halls” residents in the Bronx.

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