Mayor Bloomberg wants to “mend” not “end” his controversial and aggressive stop-and-frisk policy - one that encourages officers to detain and search anyone simply upon suspicion.
As part of his “mending” effort, he and the governor have proposed decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana - a move too late to save stop-and-frisk victim Ramarley Graham, who, “armed” with only a small bag of the substance, was followed into his apartment and shot dead by a NYPD officer.
Though Bloomberg still insists the program has saved lives, it largely seems to exist to harass and racially profile innocent citizens.
Think Progress says that out of 685,724 stops in 2011, 605,328 people were found to be innocent of illegal behavior, and 85% of those stopped were Latino or African-American
These and other facts show that Bloomberg’s program needs Ending, not Mending. Tell him to end the city's abusive, discriminatory Stop-and-Frisk policy.
We, the undersigned, find Bloomberg's Stop-and-Frisk program to be a gross violation of human rights, doing far more harm than good.
An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2004, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports.
We join the tens of thousands of civil and human rights advocates and others who are protesting this "abusive and discriminatory practice," and call for an immediate end to New York City's stop-and-frisk program.
Thank you for your attention to this request.
