Thank you, Chair Hanks and Speaker Adams for holding this important hearing today. Today we are here to discuss transparency, and why, despite being a taxpayer funded agency, the NYPD does not demonstrate accountability to the same public that funds them.
I support all the bills being heard today and any efforts to compel the NYPD to comply with the many reporting requirements to which they are already subject. However, today I want to focus on Intro 586 and Intro 538, the How Many Stops Act.
In 2017, we passed the Right to Know Act. Now, in most situations when an officer stops someone, that officer must identify themselves and the reason for the stop; give a business card with their name, ID, and badge number; and obtain informed and voluntary consent in order to conduct a search. A key provision is that the officer must convey that the person stopped has a right to refuse the search in a language that person understands.
When these bills passed, we believed they would be transformative in improving police-civilian interactions. Yet we know that under Mayor Adams, the number of stops has increased more than 20%, while Commissioner Sewell has repeatedly reduced or dismissed penalties for noncompliance with the bills’ mandates. We also know, thanks to data we do have, that NYPD is still stopping Black and Brown people at much higher rates – 87% of all reported stops in 2021.
The How Many Stops Act will help us accomplish a few goals. Intro 586 will bring transparency to many more types of stops than is already required. The public deserves to know who is being stopped, where, and why so that we can identify patterns and hold the NYPD accountable for profiling and harassment. Intro 538 will expand reporting requirements on consent searches, so we will know not only when searches happen, but also when they are requested and refused. We’ll also get data on NYPD’s use of consent searches to obtain DNA, and we’ll know whether officers are using interpretation services as required. A secondary goal aside from transparency is the hope that knowing that they must report on their interactions will inspire a positive change in officer behavior.
Thank you again to the Council for holding this hearing today. I want you to know that I continue to be an ally in this work to change the way NYPD interacts with our communities, and I look forward to working with you on this and other reform efforts.
