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New York police frisk more people despite criticism By Edith Honan Posted 2012/05/12 at 8:18 pm EDT NEW YORK, May 12, 2012 (Reuters) — New York police conducted more than 200,000 frisk searches in thefirst three months of this year, a 10 percent increase from thesame period last year, even as critics say the practice often isracial profiling. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner RayKelly have long defended the program as one that saves lives andhas helped bring violent crime down to historic lows, making NewYork one of the safest big cities in America. But the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups say thatblack and Latino New Yorkers are stopped with alarming frequency,even though in the great majority of cases they are found to havedone nothing wrong. Last week, the organization released a study that found that in2011, police performed more stop and frisk searches of young blackmen than the total number of young black men living in New York. So far this year, almost all of the stops have involved men, whileblacks made up more than half of the stops and a third involvedLatinos. About one in ten of those stopped were white and 3 percentof the stops were Asian. Police spokesman Paul Browne said the demographic breakdowncorresponded to crime data. The department provided the data to theNew York City Council on Friday and to reporters on Saturday. Nine in ten stops resulted in no further police action. An arrestwas made in five percent of the stops, and a summons was issued inanother five percent of cases, down slightly from 2011, policesaid. There was a 31 percent jump in the number of illegal firearmsconfiscated from suspicious individuals, compared to the sameperiod last year. There were 129 murders through Friday in New York this year,representing a drop of more than more than 20 percent compared to ayear ago, police said. According to Kelly, the fact that crime is down as stop-and-friskincidents are up is no coincidence. "If history is a guide, the vast majority of those lives saved wereyoung men of color. Last year 96 percent of all shooting victims inNew York were black or Hispanic, as were over 90 percent of murdervictims," Kelly said. The highest number of murders was recorded in 1990, when there weremore than 2,200 homicides. Since 2002 there have not been more than600 murders in a single year. That is the year Bloomberg tookoffice and named Kelly the head of the city's police force. But the stop and frisk program has vocal critics. "This program is not an effective crime-fighting tool," said DonnaLieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. "And yet it takes amonumental toll on the freedom and dignity of hundreds of thousandsof innocent New Yorkers of color every year." Some say the stop-and-frisk program is alienating the support ofminority communities and undermining community-based policing. "We cannot continue to stop, question and frisk nearly 700,000 NewYorkers in this way without doing harm to the relationship betweenpolice officers and the people they are protecting, particularly incommunities of color," said New York City Council Speaker ChristineQuinn. Quinn, a likely candidate for mayor in 2013, released a statementin response to the data, calling for "significant reform,"including better monitoring, supervision and accountability. (Reporting By Edith Honan; Editing by Vicki Allen). We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Condenser Tube , Wire Tube Condenser Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Refrigeration Tube.
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