Racial Profiling, Gates and Obama

July 24, 2009, New York, NY – “Racial profiling is a stark reality people of color must face on a daily basis,” said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren. “Be it a distinguished Ivy League professor, the president of the United States, a Latino immigrant driving a car in Sheriff Arpaio’s town or a young man of color walking home on the streets of New York City, all of us experience racial profiling and discrimination in our interactions with law enforcement across the nation.” 
 
“The record number of young Black and Latino men stopped solely on the basis of race is staggering,” said Director of Education and Outreach Annette Dickerson. “Race-based policing has devastating effects – it is no wonder there is a climate of distrust and fear of the police in communities of color.”

CCR is currently suing the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for the racial disparities in its stop-and-frisks. CCR issued a report in the past year with police data never before available to the public, showing that: over 80 percent of NYPD-initiated stops are of Blacks and Latinos, a disproportionately higher rate than Whites who comprised only 20 percent; that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be frisked after a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites; and that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have physical force used against them during a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites.

The lawsuit, Floyd v. City of New York, stems from CCR's landmark racial profiling case, Daniels v. City of New York – filed in the wake of the Amadou Diallo shooting – that led to the disbanding of the infamous Street Crime Unit and a settlement with the City in 2003.

Copies of the report and the complete data are available at http://ccrjustice.org/stopandfrisk. For more information on Floyd v. City of New York, click here.