90% of Drivers Searched or Arrested by the Police in 2022 were Black or Latino in NYC, a City Run and Controlled by White Liberals
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From [HERE] The first comprehensive data set on the NYPD’s use of vehicle stops shows that police pulled over hundreds of thousands of drivers last year — and about 90% of the people searched or arrested in those stops were Black or Latino.
Police stopped a total of more than 670,000 drivers in 2022 — roughly equivalent to the total population of Washington, D.C. That’s about the same number of pedestrians NYPD officers stopped in 2011, at the height of the stop-and-frisk era. The NYPD has never released vehicle stop numbers before, so it’s impossible to know how last year’s data compares to prior years.
While most stops only resulted in a summons for a minor violation, officers searched and arrested Black and Latino drivers at far higher rates than white drivers, according to data obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union and shared with Gothamist. When police used force during traffic stops and recorded the person’s race, the person they used force against was a person of color about 92% of the time, the data shows.
“As with the pedestrian stops during the height of stop and frisk, we are now seeing numbers where it’s quite clear that Black and Latino drivers are being singled out for the most aggressive police activity,” said Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU's legal director. “That’s a source of a lot of concern.”
The NYPD said the new data is just a “baseline” and that the department is still working to analyze and understand the numbers.
“But make no mistake,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Whether for street encounters or vehicle stops, both are fundamental tools in a thoughtful and multilayered public safety approach practiced by the NYPD to keep all New Yorkers safe and free from fear.”
Traffic stops are among the most common interactions between police and the public, and departments often tout them as a tool to increase road safety and search for evidence of more serious crimes. But experts and advocates for police reform have noted that the tactic disproportionately affects people of color and can escalate into violence. After the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop in Memphis, some are once again casting doubt on the effectiveness of car stops, noting that they put both drivers and officers in danger and rarely turn up evidence of a serious crime.
The new vehicle stop data from the NYPD shows that the department’s hundreds of thousands of vehicle stops in 2022 rarely resulted in arrests. Officers made an arrest only about 2.2% of the time. About 77% of stops resulted in a summons for a minor violation, like driving with a broken tail light.
The most common types of arrests were for license violations and possession of a forged instrument, which is often brought against people who violate license plate rules. In contrast, police made just 631 arrests for second-degree criminal possession of a loaded weapon, accounting for about 4% of arrests.
“We see time and time and time again that traffic stops generate enormous harm, and they do so for very little benefit,” Dunn said.
While pedestrian stops have been the subject of intense scrutiny in New York City in recent years, the new vehicle stops data provides an unprecedented look at a form of policing that, until recently, was used by the NYPD with little transparency. In 2021, the City Council passed a law requiring police to record and share quarterly reports on car stop numbers, broken down by race, gender and several other factors.
A City Council spokesperson called the first batch of numbers “alarming.”
“Police departments across the nation have been moving away from vehicle stops because of the evidence showing they too often escalate and lead to tragic incidents and can extract resources from communities through fines and fees with severe disparities,” spokesperson Rendy Desamours said in a statement. “This first-ever year of data on vehicle stops in New York City shows why this initial transparency was so critical.”
‘Use stops as an investigative moment’
Farhang Heydari, executive director of NYU’s Policing Project, questioned whether vehicle stops are actually making the roads safer.
“Are we finding lots of people with murder warrants and violent, you know, people who have committed violent crimes? Or are we just arresting people who can’t afford to pay traffic tickets or other kinds of fines?” he said. “I’m just very skeptical that this tactic is accomplishing anything.” [MORE]
