Philadelphia case to test how far “Stop And Frisk” policy can go.

In the debate over the police tactic known as stop-and-frisk, both sides agree there's nothing inherently wrong with officers stopping more black and Hispanic than white residents, at least in cities where violent crime is concentrated in minority neighborhoods.

The question is: At what point does stopping a disproportionate number of minorities cross the line into illegal, race-based policing?

When does a legitimate, proactive tactic become the wholesale harassment of communities?

Determining those limits has been one of the more controversial topics in big-city law enforcement - and a question that often has gone before the courts to be answered.

In Philadelphia, where police embraced an aggressive stop-and-frisk policy nearly three years ago in response to rising gun violence, the debate is about to begin in earnest.

Civil rights lawyers filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month, arguing that Philadelphia police have been targeting people based solely on race.

In 2009, officers stopped 253,333 pedestrians, 72 percent of whom were African American, the suit says.

The lawsuit says just 8 percent of the stops in 2009 resulted in arrests, often for "criminal conduct that was entirely independent from the supposed reason for the stop." Beyond the overall number of stops by race in 2009 and the arrest percentage, Rudovsky and his cocounsel lack data to search for patterns and figure out precisely who gets frisked and why.


Link:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20101129_Federal_lawsuit_alleges_stop-and-frisk_unfairly_targets_minorities.html