Federal Court Blocks Stop-and-Frisk Ruling

 By Claudio Iván Remeseira Follow @HispanicNewYork| Posted on Thursday, October 31, 2013, at 6:00 p.m. ET.

A federal appeals court blocked on Thursday a judge’s order requiring the New York Police Department to introduce changes in its stop-and-frisk program and removed the judge from the case. Pending the outcome of an appeal by the city, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the decisions of the Judge, Shira Scheindlin, will be stayed. NBC Latino reports:

Last summer, Judge Scheindlin ruled that New York violated the Constitution in the way it carried out its “stop and frisk” program of stopping and questioning people. The judge ruled that police officers violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of people by wrongly targeting black and Hispanic me, and had appointed a monitor to oversee changes.  Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the stops had increased to an all-time high 684,330 in 2011, mostly of black and Hispanic men.  In 2004, a group of  men, all minorities, filed a lawsuit, and it became a class action case.

New York state senator Adriano Espaillat criticized the Circuit Court of Appeal’s reversal, saying: “While August’s ruling offered closure to the hundreds of thousands of Black and Latino New Yorkers who have been unfairly stopped and frisked, the 2nd Circuit’s decision to stall and imperil urgent social justice reforms is disappointing and short-sighted. Under the counsel of a special monitor, our City was on the cusp of achieving progressive change we have spent years fighting for. As this legal process continues, we must continue to push for legislative and executive policy changes to end the use of tactics that have instilled bitter resentment in the Black and Latino community, and harmed young people who have done nothing wrong.”