Stop Whining About Stop And Frisks!

Enough already with thinking the police WANT to stop and frisk minorities. Reading media accounts of those stopped, one would think the police were frenzied cowboys running amok. Some articles suggest the police are financially compensated for stopping young black men and secretly rewarded for violating the rights of others. Of course the NYPD is not without fault for creating adverse reactions in many communities, but the overall issue needs a common sense middle ground. As a lifelong Brooklyn resident and a police officer, maybe a different perspective is in order.

I haven’t been a frenzied pig my whole life, but I have been stopped and frisked more than most. In fact, during my adolescence I’ve probably been “tossed” more than all the New York columnists combined, yet I never came away with any more negative feelings for the police than I have today.

Growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, I was associated with a large, loud, and disorderly group. We did not have community recreation centers, interactive video games, or facebook friends to distract us. We had the pizzeria, the street corner, and the nearby social club- as well as plenty of access to alcohol, drugs, and the violence that stems from life on the street. Sprinkle in a pinch of organized crime, and the temptation for illicit behavior was everywhere. The conditions in the late 1980’s were actually WORSE than they are today, yet parents and communities currently act as if stricken with amnesia.

Growing up in a white community, many criminal incidents involved white perpetrators. Because most perps were white, the corner boys were the first location patrol cars and anti-crime officers canvassed after a reported crime…and trust me, FAR more crimes in the 1980’s went unreported without the prevalence of cellular phones. In the 1980's, being in the vicinity of the crime or seeing a matching a description didn’t matter to the street cops. What did matter to police was protecting their safety while rolling up on as many as fifty potential adversaries on a single street corner. Our group often outnumbered the cops on duty in the entire precinct, so we were cursed at, thrown to the floor, or against a wall, and searched for weapons or the fruits of a crime. Once a week on average (twice or more in summer) we would be subjected to this behavior and it sucked. It sucked when the cops would tear or dirty our clothes as we gathered to sneak into bars with fake ID’s. It sucked worse when someone would get pinched for a marijuana cigarette, or disorderly conduct for expressing our distaste for the poor decorum of the cops.

Throughout our mutual years of conflict and mistrust, we never BLAMED the police for what they were doing. In fact, we understood why they were harassing us. We knew we deserved the attention and we earned it. We didn’t demand a badge number or a receipt for the inconvenience as the cops today have to provide for doing their jobs. In fact, just having the police not spill beer and liquor hidden behind parked cars was considered a minor victory.

Fast forward two decades and now I’m part of the invading gang in blue. Fortunately, street corner culture is not as prevalent as it was in years past (no doubt due to technology) and most street encounters are manageable. Of course, New York’s street corner culture still dislikes the practice of stop-and-frisks, as the media plays up the incidents. But in order analyze the situation correctly, one must acknowledge the stats and interpret them sensibly.

Blacks and Hispanics ARE disproportionately stopped by cops, (I personally stop more myself) but they are also disproportionately more often the crime perpetrators. Conversely, blacks and Latinos are 90 percent of the city’s murder victims too. I didn’t invent this fact. Look at the stats. How often are Asians stopped-and-frisked? Clearly there must be an explanation for the underrepresentation of Asians stopped for violent crimes.  Wouldn’t it seem absurd if they protested in public and demanded their fair share of inconvenience from the police?   

For generations, violence has plagued America from within the races, not between them. Do you remember the “stop black-on-black crime” movement of the 80’s and 90’s? Do you wonder what happened to that? It was phased out due to political correctness and labeling. Blacks disliked the movement because it exposed the pervasive realities of crime in the inner city. Whites believed the movement encouraged violence toward other groups. In retrospect, maybe having minister Farrakhan and other divisive leaders behind the movement wasn’t the best approach, but I wish organizers would revamp the movement.   

Thinking logically, if police are looking for minority offenders, then minority stop and frisks would follow. Case closed. Unfortunately, our current protest-friendly climate prevents our politicians from engaging in honest discourse. Our former Police Commissioner Howard Safir handled the media exceptionally in this area and never danced around the issue like we see today.  I’ve recently read some hipster-doofus excuse laden article blaming cops themselves for calling 911 so we can jeopardize our safety just to stop and frisk minorities. Really? Does anyone actually think the police get their kicks from running our bare hands over the sweaty and dirty bodies of corner thugs? Have you seen them these days? Many of them walk around with their boxers exposed and their pants sagging around their thighs. Do you really think I’m eager to search them?

Thankfully, the flurry of media attention has reduced the NYPD’s attempts at generating stop and frisk reports from the patrol force. Believe it or not, cops were rated by how many stops were conducted as a performance measure. Sadly, some police administrators fail to recognize that maintaining crowd control and back up during street encounters is as important as the person putting his hands on the saggy boxers of another. For instance, while I prefer not to be the first in the group to touch a sweaty stranger, I will be the one to diffuse a situation and say “If your family was victimized, you’d want the police to be as thorough and committed to helping also, so please be patient.”

But to be fair, if I have to toss someone against a wall out on the street at night, I really don’t care about internal pressure or public outrage. I’m doing it strictly because I fear for my safety and I believe a gun might be present and used against me.  I often wonder, though, if the violent days of the recent past were prevalent now, would our  memory challenged citizens expect a more hands on approach from our police force…