BED-STUY, NY — Less than half of stop-and-frisk stops made by a controversial new NYPD division in part of Bed-Stuy last year were lawful, according to a new study from a federal monitor.
Two Bed-Stuy precincts — the 79th and 81st — are among more than a dozen named in an independent monitor’s audit of Neighborhood Safety Teams, pitched in 2022 as a response to gun violence on a hyperlocal level.
Instead, court-appointed NYPD monitor Mylan Denerstein said she found widespread non-compliance.
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“The results are disappointing,” Denerstein wrote. “Despite training and experience… too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully.”
The study found alarming results in Bed-Stuy’s 81st Precinct, where monitors sampled three Neighborhood Safety Team searches conducted between April and October of 2022, and found not one had been justified.
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The officers had reasonable suspicion for only half of their eight stops and frisks in the same period, the data show.
In Bed-Stuy’s 79th Precinct, only one of two searches reviewed was found to be lawful.
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Citywide data also raised concerns for the monitor, who found 97 percent of sampled stops targeted Black and brown New Yorkers.
Body-worn camera videos from across the 34 studied areas — including 29 videos from Bed-Stuy — showed that 24.5 percent of stops did not have reasonable suspicion.
And the citywide program data is staggering — across NYC, 24 percent of Neighborhood Safety Team officers’ stops were unlawful, according to the report.
When the officer initiated a stop based on personal observations — not a reported crime — that number jumped to 31 percent.
Charles McLaurin, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, argued the data was proof the program should be disbanded.
“New York City residents, disproportionately Black and Brown, are targeted and harassed by the NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety Teams unit,” McLaurin said. “We call for the City to put an end to these units for good.”
An earlier iteration of the Neighborhood Safety Teams program was disbanded amid widespread criticism that officers targeted Black and Brown New Yorkers and deployed aggressive practices.
Despite the resounding disappointment, some areas, like the Bronx’s busy 46th and 52nd precinct, had 100 percent compliance — which shows that “policing can be done constitutionally and documented accordingly,” study authors said.
The study also raised concerns about underreporting given some areas had very taken few reports.
Training was a significant concern given the study found higher rates of compliance with non-NST NYPD officers, who presumably do not undergo specific training, according to the study.
The study found that supervisors were largely not identifying or correcting improper stops, frisks and searches. Precinct and departmental oversight was also significantly lacking, the report found.
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