Author: scott prell

NY’s Highest Court Issues Landmark Ruling Requiring Full Disclosure of Police Misconduct Records to NYCLU

Following a lawsuit from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) with pro bono counsel A&O Shearman, the New York Court of Appeals ruled today that the Rochester Police Department must publicly disclose all records related to police discipline and misconduct allegations, regardless of whether the RPD “substantiated” the complaint or imposed discipline, following the 2020 repeal of 50-a.
— Read on www.nyclu.org/press-release/nys-highest-court-issues-landmark-ruling-requiring-full-disclosure-of-police-misconduct-records-to-nyclu

NYPD quality-of-life subway crackdown aimed at finding criminal offenders

A homeless man accused of shoplifting 17 times at the same Queens Duane Reade and menacing a security guard was back behind bars after police took him into custody for stretching out across several subway seats, the Daily News has learned. The NYPD said the Feb. 7 arrest of Luis Caballero, 36, is an example of how enforcing NYC Transit rules maintains order in the subway system and often leads …
— Read on www.yahoo.com/news/nypd-quality-life-subway-crackdown-130000503.html

Why Cops Shoot: The entire Tampa Bay Times project on Florida police | Tampa Bay Times

No one was keeping track of police shootings in the country’s third-largest state. So in 2014, the Tampa Bay Times set out to count every officer-involved shooting in Florida during a six-year period. We learned that at least 827 people were shot by police — one every 2½ days. We learned that blacks are shot at a higher rate than whites. We learned that on-duty police are almost never charged with crimes for firing, even though agencies pay millions to settle civil lawsuits.

We learned that there are ways to avoid some of the violence.
— Read on projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/investigations/florida-police-shootings/

Project on the 4th Amendment – Institute for Justice

The Institute for Justice’s Project on the Fourth Amendment strives to protect one of America’s foundational property rights: The right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. As government has grown in size and scope, judges have invented one exception after another, poking holes in the Fourth Amendment until it resembled Swiss cheese.

These exceptions let Big Brother snoop on our daily lives–including by coming onto peoples’ land to snoop on them and demanding records about who people called or what websites they visited–all without ever having to get a judge’s permission. The threat these exceptions pose grows ever more dire because under current search and seizure law, the further technology advances, the more privacy must retreat.

But IJ’s Project on the Fourth Amendment will restore Americans’ rights to security and privacy. It will persuade both courts and the public that the Fourth Amendment is a fundamental aspect of our property rights. It will eliminate loopholes that let the government investigate us and our property without having to get a warrant. And it will convince courts that whether a search or seizure is “unreasonable” turns not on their own personal views, but rather on the protections that Americans fought a revolution to secure.
— Read on ij.org/issues/ijs-project-on-the-4th-amendment/

2023 TRAFFIC STOP DATA ANALYSIS – Suffolk County PD

Traffic Stop Data Analysis
Stonewall Analytics, LLC 2
Executive Summary
This report analyzes nearly 160,000 traffic stops conducted in Suffolk County, New York, in
2023, with the goal of assessing whether racial or ethnic disparities exist in stop and search
practices. The study applies two key statistical tests: the Veil-of-Darkness test to evaluate racial bias in stop decisions and the Hit Rate test to examine search outcomes across different racial and ethnic groups. The data were obtained through the Suffolk County Police Department. The data were cleaned and standardized to ensure consistency across the reporting period of calendar year 2023.
The Veil-of-Darkness test compares traffic stops made during daylight and nighttime hours,
under the assumption that officers are less able to discern a driver’s race at night. Logistic
regression models were used to assess whether minority drivers were stopped more frequently
in daylight than at night, controlling for various factors such as officer command type. The
results showed no statistically significant relationship between daylight stops and the likelihood
of stopping minority drivers, as compared to White drivers. The odds ratios for minority drivers
remained close to 1.0, indicating that racial bias did not appear to be a significant factor in
initial stop decisions.
The second component of the analysis focused on traffic stops with searches using the Hit Rate test, which assesses whether searches yielded a positive result, which is defined as a search yielding illegal drugs, illegal weapons, or other contraband or evidence. Although the data revealed variation in hit rates across racial and ethnic groups, with White drivers having the highest positive result rate, statistical tests found no significant difference in hit rates between White drivers and Black or Hispanic drivers across geographic areas. While White drivers were more likely to have positive result searches, the difference was not statistically significant, suggesting that variations in search outcomes may be influenced by other factors rather than bias in policing practices.
Overall, the study found no evidence of racial bias in traffic stop decisions based on the Veil-of-Darkness test and no statistically significant differences in search hit rates between minority
and White drivers. However, the findings highlight the importance of ongoing monitoring and
refinement of data collection practices to ensure transparency and fairness in law enforcement
activities. Future research should explore additional variables that may contribute to disparities
in post-stop outcomes and continue evaluating traffic stop data over time to detect any
emerging patterns or policy impacts.

Get the report HERE