Video: A Black Police Officer Shares His Experience After Being Stopped And Frisked 30 Times By His Fellow Police Officers

This story represents true irony. Nick, a black citizen of the United States, was a very good athlete back in high school. Due to that, he loves to jog regularly on the streets, early in the mornings to improve his fitness.

But the more he keeps on doing this customary personal assignment, the more he is harassed by police officers. He has been stopped and frisked 30 times by police officers, for no reason. Stop and frisk is a highly controversial practice, when an officer stops someone who the officer thinks “looks suspicious” and frisks the person for weapons. It is a crime intervention policy that has sparked debate over its fairness and legality across the US.

That is what has happened to Nick, a gentle and law abiding citizen. Officers think he looks suspicious and have stopped him 30 times, but have found nothing on him.

“I have been stopped lots of times, sometimes driving my car; other times, I’ve been stopped on the street. And I’ve had some really poor experiences. … It’s intimidating when you know you haven’t done anything wrong, that it’s frustrating. It’s also embarrassing“, Nick said when narrating his story.

But the irony of the story is, Nick is not just a law abiding citizen, he is also a police officer.

And throughout all these harassment, he never revealed to any of the officers that he is a police officer. He always stays calm and after their questions and instructions, he continues to wherever he was going.

“It makes you wary of a police car behind you or police officers in the street, which seems really weird when I’m a police officer myself. But I genuinely do feel that,” Nick confessed in an interview.

But what Nick feels, is not just exclusive to him. Let us now go into the statistics, to see how other black people are suffering from this Stop and Frisk Law.

Research from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), showed that stop-and-frisk in New York, focuses on men of color, which seems totally skewed if you look at the total population.

In 2011, NYCLU’s statistics showed that 168,126 young black men (between the ages of 14 and 24) were stopped by the police. This made up 25.6% of NYPD stops. Young black men are only 1.9% of the city’s population. In the same year, only 24,760 young white men were stopped. That accounts for 3.8% of NYPD stops. Young white men also make up 2% of the city’s population.

Between 2003 and 2012, stop-and-frisk climbed by a whopping 600% in New York, but only a small percentage of those incidents involved police finding someone carrying a gun or attempting to commit a violent crime. According to the NYCLU, during that time, stops increased by 524,873, but officers found only 176 more guns.

The point here is, that people are not against the law per say, but the nature in which the law is being  implemented by police appears to suggest it is being used to racially target and abuse some specific groups of people.

But according to NYCLU again, the racial targeting seems to be improving. The union said in 2013, that New Yorkers were stopped by the police 191,558 times.

169,252 were totally innocent (88 percent).

104,958 were black (56 percent). 55,191 were Latino (29 percent).

20,877 were white (11 percent).

In 2014, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 46,235 times.

38,051 were totally innocent (82 percent).

24,777 were black (55 percent).

12,662 were Latino (29 percent).

5,536 were white (12 percent).

But this improvement never came on a silver platter. It was District Judge-Shira Scheindlin, who ruled that stop-and-frisk is “unconstitutional and racially discriminatory“, in a case brought before the court. Details of the case can be found here on Newsday.com.

Part of the ruling by the judge, required that the New York Police Department put reforms in place, including more intense monitoring and accountability for these incidents and officers wearing body cameras.

The struggle to see the end of this racial law is far from over. Since Scheindlin gave the ruling, there have been appeals and negotiations and now, Scheindlin has been removed from the case. This has caused some of the reforms to be put on hold.

But we believe that people with stories such as Nick, should come out boldly to share them with us. By exposing  the police and with persistent activism, we can end this unjust enactment of law and prevent people from being divided.

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