BY LESLEY SUSSMAN | Community Board 3 is asking the Police Department to take more steps to reform its controversial “Stop, Question and Frisk” program, and further requested that the U.S. Department of Justice launch an investigation into how the program is used in New York to determine whether racial profiling still remains a problem.
The New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices have over the years raised serious concerns about racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The department’s own report on its stop-and-frisk activity has confirmed that police are stopping hundreds of New Yorkers every year, and that the vast majority are black or Latino.
At its Tuesday full board meeting, C.B. 3 members overwhelmingly supported the resolution, which was previously approved by the board’s Transportation and Public Safety / Environment Committee.
The resolution was first brought before the committee by Borough President Scott Stringer, who has joined civil rights groups in criticizing the N.Y.P.D.’s escalating use of street stops, a policy police say is critical for keeping guns off the street.
Stringer has criticized the program for, in his words, “creating a wall of distrust between people of color and the police that makes it harder, not easier, to solve crimes.”
Stringer aide Alec Schierenbeck said it was “not guns police were finding when they stopped someone on the street, but, instead, small amounts of marijuana. We don’t need to enforce marijuana laws this way,” he said.
The C.B. 3 resolution noted that last year every one out of seven stop-and-frisk-related arrests in the city was for low-level marijuana possession, costing the city $75 million a year in police and court costs. The resolution also noted that 85 percent of the youths charged with such a crime were either black or Latino.
“They did not do jail time,” the resolution continued, “but their record compromised their chances of securing financial aid, accessing public housing, obtaining gainful employment and enlisting in the military.”
David Crane, chairperson of the Transportation and Public Safety / Environmental Committee, told the board that the Police Department had taken some steps to modify its stop-and-frisk policy, “but we need further reforms,” he said.
Crane said he supported the “call-in” approach, which he described as an excellent alternative to stop-and-frisk. It has been used successfully in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago where it has reduced violent crime by up to 60 percent.
“You call in potential bad actors in the community to let them know that they’re being watched and try to hook them up with educational or social service opportunities,” Crane explained.
Also in strong support of the measure was Carlina Rivera who said, “This has been an issue — especially in our black and Latino community. I’m glad we’re supporting some kind of investigation. Hopefully, it will lead to some kind of reform.”
But not every board member was in complete agreement. David Adams, who voted no on the proposal, speaking later, said, “Small crimes often lead to big crimes, so maybe the police should be making these stops for small crimes. I just don’t know and that’s why I voted no.”
The C.B. 3 resolution also called for legislation to be passed that would make possession of small amounts of marijuana in “public view” a violation, rather than a misdemeanor.
In other board business, a measure was approved to ask the Parks Department to rename Sol Lain ball field, near P.S. 134, at East Broadway and Montgomery St., after Edward Garcia, a former gang member turned Vladeck Houses community activist.
Garcia, who died in September 2010, began his activist career in the early 1980s when he confronted drug dealers who were driving children from Sol Lain Playground’s blacktop.
A lifelong Lower East Sider, Garcia for more than 20 years was president of the Sol Lain League, which offered Saturday morning flag football, basketball and wiffle ball for local youth.
Dozens of Garcia’s friends and his sister, Marilu, turned out at the board meeting to make an emotional appeal for the designation. Also speaking for the motion was Reverend Marc Rivera, pastor of Primitive Christian Church, on E. Broadway, Garcia’s church.
“We want to recognize his leadership on the Lower East Side,” the reverend said.
On another matter, a debate erupted over adding new street lighting along Essex St. between East Houston and Canal Sts. The Lower East Side Business Improvement District says the new lights would better illuminate the area and help promote business.
The organization has secured more than $300,000 in capital grant funds for the brighter lights from B.P. Stringer’s Office.
A spokesperson for the Essex St. Block Association, however, said they wanted to preserve the Bishop’s Crook replica light fixtures which, according to the BID plan, would be relocated to narrower side streets along Norfolk, Suffolk, Stanton and Rivington Sts.
Board member Linda Jones, however, said the streets by Seward Park High School were “dark and foreboding. We want new, modern lighting — not pseudo-historic lights,” she said.
Jones was, not surprisingly, supported by Bob Zuckerman, the BID’s executive director, who is a public member of C.B. 3. The measure was approved along with a recommendation that the design of the new “WM”poles, which cast light on a wider area, prevent pigeons from perching on them over the sidewalk.
