NYPD anti-gun teams using illegal, discriminatory stop-and-frisk tactics, says federal monitor

The NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety Teams are heavily engaging in illegal stop-and-frisk tactics and overwhelmingly targeting Black and Hispanic New Yorkers, according to a new report from the federal monitor overseeing the department.

The Neighborhood Safety Teams (NST), formed last year by Mayor Eric Adams to combat gun crime, only had “reasonable suspicion” for 69% of the stops they initiated and 73% of the frisks, and a legal basis for only 63% of their searches, according to the report released Monday by federal monitor Mylan Denerstein. The units are making unlawful stops at a 9% higher clip than the department overall in 2020, the monitor notes.

Further, in a troubling echo of the past, more than 97% of the unit’s stops are against Black or Latino New Yorkers.

The monitor’s findings are based on a “limited review” of the NST’s stop reports and body-worn camera footage.

“Unfortunately, the results are disappointing,” Denerstein wrote. “Despite training and experience, NST officers overall appear to be stopping, frisking, and searching individuals at an unsatisfactory level of compliance. Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully.”

Mayor Adams, a former police captain, launched the Neighborhood Safety Teams last year as a revival of sorts of the NYPD’s plainclothes anti-crime units, which were disbanded in 2020 after protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Those units were historically responsible for a disproportionate amount of illegal stop-and-frisk and use-of-force incidents.

Neighborhood Safety Teams patrol in unmarked vehicles.Photo by Dean Moses

The units were deployed strategically to areas said to suffer from high rates of gun violence, which tended to correspond to those with large Black and Hispanic populations. But the new units would wear uniforms identifying them as NYPD and, Adams said, would be staffed with highly trained, “emotionally intelligent” officers to prevent the mistakes of the past.

The results have not borne out that vision. The monitor notes incidents where stops were made without reasonable suspicion a crime is being or has been committed, such as when a person “looked back at the officers or changed direction,” had an unspecified “bulge” on their person, or the stop report was inconsistent with body cam footage.

At one precinct, the 41st in the South Bronx, only 41% of stops, 32% of frisks, and 26% of searches were deemed lawful.

While the unit is uniformed on foot, its patrol vehicles are unmarked. As for its vehicle stops, just two out of 230 reviewed by the monitor resulted in the recovery of weapons. Another two recovered unidentifiable contraband.

The monitor also noted the department’s oversight of the NST and their stop-and-frisk tactics is “inadequate at all levels,” and is directing the NYPD to submit a report within 30 days outlining a plan for enhanced oversight of the teams. A police spokesperson said the department disagrees with some of the findings in the report.

“The NYPD is still reviewing the Monitor’s report. However, the Department disagrees with the conclusions of the Monitor with respect to some of the encounters the team reviewed,” the NYPD spokesperson said. “NSTs engage with the public lawfully and constitutionally, and since the implementation of the program they have been instrumental in the reduction of shootings and homicides that the City is experiencing. The NYPD takes accountability seriously and has established multiple layers of oversight.”

The Legal Aid Society categorized the report’s findings as troubling but predictable.

“Today’s report by the NYPD Monitor suggests that these new units are off to a troubling start with high rates of police misconduct and constitutional violations,” said Molly Griffard, a staff attorney in Legal Aid’s law reform and special litigation unit. “These early audit results confirm what Legal Aid and other advocates feared when Mayor Adams created the units just over one year ago — that Neighborhood Safety Teams are, like their Anti-Crime and Street Crime Unit predecessors, rife with misconduct and prone to abuse the rights of the very people they are tasked with protecting.”

The department’s use of stop-and-frisk has, historically, been highly racialized and subject to considerable scrutiny from watchdogs. At its peak in 2011, the NYPD stopped over 685,000 people, often with little pretext. Of those people, 88% were innocent and 87% were Black or Latino.

In 2013, a federal judge ruled the department’s use of stop-and-frisk was unconstitutional, applied in a way that amounted to racial profiling. The ruling did not outright eliminate stop-and-frisk from the NYPD toolkit but strictly limited its use, which fell dramatically in the following years.

Mayor Adams holds up a picture of Claudia Quatey, a victim of a stray bullet, in justifying his Neighborhood Safety Teams following a scathing federal monitor’s report.Screenshot via YouTube

Mayor Adams strongly pushed back on the report at an unrelated press event on Tuesday. The mayor contended the reason stops are overwhelmingly made against Black and Latino New Yorkers, in neighborhoods where those are the predominant demographics, is that “90%” of both people carrying illegal guns and gun violence victims are Black and brown.

The NYPD’s 2021 enforcement record, provided by a spokesperson to amNewYork Metro, showed 95.6% of firearm arrests and 96.2% of shooting arrests were against Black and Latino individuals. For shooting victims, the statistic is 96.9%.

Adams also noted that he was a critic of stop-and-frisk when he was a cop, and that its use has declined from its 685,000 peak to around 15,000 in his first year as mayor, though that’s still a 69% increase over its use in the last year of the de Blasio administration.

“Over 90% of the people who are the victims of gun violence and homicide are Black and brown. Over 90% of the people who are carrying the illegal guns are Black and brown,” said Hizzoner. “We are going to make sure the constitutionality is protected. We’re going to use public safety and justice.”

The mayor said the report ignores the number of guns taken off the streets by the NSTs; a City Hall spokesperson said cops have taken 10,000 illegal guns off the streets since Adams became mayor last year, though couldn’t say how many of those were removed by NSTs.

Further, the focus on statistics ignores the human cost of gun violence, he argued. He then proceeded to hold up a picture of Claudia Quatey, a 16-year-old girl who was killed last month after being hit by a stray bullet while sitting in a car in St. Albans, Queens.

“Any tool that’s abused is the wrong tool to be abused. We are not gonna allow any abuse of the tools,” said Adams. “But I never want us to forget why we’re doing this. We’re doing it for Claudias in this city. Too many young people are using guns, too many young people are the victims of gun violence, and no one seems to care.”

This story was updated with comments from the NYPD and additional information from the mayor’s office.