Stop-And-Frisk without Suspicion Must Cease in the Bronx
By Donna Lieberman
We won on a huge victory in the campaign to reign in NYPD’s out of control stop-and-frisk program. U.S. District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled that the NYPD must immediately end unlawful suspicion-less stops outside buildings enrolled in the Operations Clean Halls program.
“Clean Halls” allows police to stop, question, and search residents in and around New York City apartment buildings, with permission of the landlord.
The judge found that for years the NYPD has known or should have known that its officers routinely violate constitutional rights through the Clean Halls program. Nonetheless the Department fails to adequately train officers about when they may legally make trespass stops, and that this practice “has risen to the level of deliberate indifference.”
The lawsuit, Ligon v. City of New York, was filed in March by the New York Civil Liberties Union, The Bronx Defenders, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and the law firm of Shearman & Sterling LLP.
Watch testimonies of NYC residents who have been adversely affected by the Clean Halls program.
Donna Lieberman is executive director of the NYCLU.
