Illegal N.Y.P.D. Stop-and-Frisk Tactics Continue Unchecked, Monitor Says

Police Department anti-crime units are stopping, frisking and searching too many New Yorkers unlawfully — and at levels far outstripping those of regular patrol units, a court-appointed monitor said.

The monitor, Mylan L. Denerstein, filed a report in federal court in Manhattan on Monday that found that the units, the Neighborhood Safety Teams and Public Safety Teams, made unlawful stops at least a quarter of the time in 2023. And despite the volume of unlawful stops, the report found, command-level supervisors habitually failed to identify or address them.

“The N.Y.P.D. must focus on supervisors ensuring implementation of constitutionally compliant stops, frisks and searches,” Ms. Denerstein, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, wrote in the report’s executive summary. “The ball is in the Department’s hands, and the N.Y.P.D. can do this. The law requires no less.”

Ms. Denerstein’s report is the 23rd such assessment since 2013, when a federal court ruled that the department’s use of stop and frisk was unconstitutional and appointed an independent monitor to oversee its use of the tactic.

It comes at something of an inflection point for the Police Department. The agency has had four commissioners in less than three years and has in recent months weathered scandals, including accusations of misconduct among top officials, that have shaken the 180-year-old institution and its roughly 50,000 officers and employees.

The report’s findings are part of a decadelong struggle to curb unlawful stops and searches and carry out court-ordered reforms, a goal that continues to elude the department. A report in September ordered by a federal judge found that police leaders had failed to punish officers who had abused stop-and-frisk tactics.

The findings offer a test for the newly appointed commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who since taking office late last year has swiftly shaken up the department’s upper ranks in an apparent attempt to reinstate order.

The Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

With a mayoral election approaching this year, the report also foreshadows a possible flashpoint in the Democratic primary in June, in which crime and public safety are likely to be top issues.

Ms. Denerstein’s report is the second in less than two years to raise the alarm about abuses by the Neighborhood Safety Teams. The units, which focus on getting firearms off the street, were disbanded in 2020 under Mayor Bill de Blasio. But his successor, Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, revived them in 2022, despite concern about their history of racially profiling Black and Latino men and their disproportionate record of shootings.

In their newest iteration, the units generally are not expected to respond to 911 calls. They drive unmarked cars and wear different uniforms than patrol officers, the report says.

Ms. Denerstein and her team analyzed stops, officers’ reports and body camera footage. According to their findings, the rate of unlawful stops, frisks and searches has not improved, and by some measures has worsened, since the monitor’s last audit of the units was filed in June 2023.

Neighborhood Safety Team officers had a legal basis for making stops only 75 percent of the time, 17 percentage points lower than their counterparts in patrol units, the report found.

The rates of abuse for frisks and searches were even more troubling: Only 58 percent of frisks were deemed lawful, constituting a 15-percentage-point drop since the previous audit, the report said, and only 54 percent of searches were lawful, a 9-point decrease.

Eighty-nine percent of the people stopped were Black or Hispanic men, the report found.

In an interview on Friday, Ms. Denerstein said that stop-and-frisk abuses were higher among officers in the anti-crime units in part because those officers were overwhelmingly initiating stops themselves, while patrol officers mostly made stops prompted by radio calls or witness complaints, which are almost always lawful.

Perhaps the biggest factor was a lack of oversight by commanders and supervisors, according to the monitor. While about 22 percent of overall stops by the anti-crime squads and patrol officers were deemed unconstitutional by the audit, supervisors found only 1 percent unlawful. In a few instances, the audit found that supervisors had reported that a frisk was conducted legally when no frisk had occurred at all. In other cases, supervisors failed to review searches recorded on body cameras.

After the monitor’s previous audit, the Police Department created an improvement plan for the squads that included tougher candidate vetting and reviews of body camera footage, but those efforts have largely fallen short, Ms. Denerstein said.

“They have all the tools,” she said. “What they lack is accountability, and I think that rests with supervisors in the field all the way up through the command.”

In the report, Ms. Denerstein set a deadline for the end of September, by which point all officers must reach at least 85 percent compliance with constitutional standards for stops, frisks and searches. If not, the report says, the monitor “may recommend further action to the Court.”

“It’s incredibly important that the N.Y.P.D., which has incredible responsibilities, polices in a constitutional manner,” she said in the Friday interview. “I think New Yorkers expect that.”

Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.