Willie Hazzard was walking down Westchester Ave. with his two children the other day, wearing a black Transformers fitted hat, black and white Rocawear leather varsity jacket, black jeans, black Jordans and diamond studs in his ears.
This outfit, he says, makes him a target for cops to stop and frisk him - something which he says has happened 17 times since he moved to Soundview two years ago.
None of the encounters resulted in arrest, he said.
The NYPD stop-and-frisk policy has recently come under fire again after aStaten Island cop was charged with falsely arresting a black man following a stop and then bragging on tape, "I fried another n-----."
The case prompted protests at stationhouses and calls for a federal investigation into the police tactic, which was used 362,150 times in the city in the first six months of this year - predominantly on black and Hispanic males.
There were 22,365 people stopped, questioned and frisked in the Bronx between April 1 and June 30 - the latest figures available - according to a quarterly report released by the NYPD, with 2,876 of the Bronx stops resulting in arrests or summonses.
Ninety-one percent of the people stopped in the Bronx were male, and 92% of those stopped were black or Hispanic.
The NYPD maintains that the controversial policy is a crime deterrent.
The Daily News conducted a random survey of 20 men of color, ranging in age from 14 to 35, in three Bronx neighborhoods - Soundview, Fordham, and The Hub. Nine said they had been stopped and frisked by police at least once.
A resounding complaint was that cops patrolling apartment buildings ask to see entrants' keys or IDs to make sure they are residents.
"I was putting the key into the front door of my building and they stopped me, asked who I am and I had to show them my ID," Rob Gomez, 21, said of a recent stop he was involved in as he entered his building on E. 143rd St.
Landlords of private residential buildings can ask officers to conduct drug sweeps in buildings through the Operation Clean Halls program.
"People have a right to live in safe buildings and neighborhoods, but this is not police protection - this is police intrusion," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
"It's pure harassment to put people into the system [putting their names on file via stop-and-frisk forms] who haven't done anything wrong."
The NYPD says the practice is backed by a state criminal procedure law - allowing an officer to stop a person reasonably believed to have committed or about to commit a crime.
Dressed in baggy jeans, a T-shirt and baseball cap, a 17-year-old Fordham teen said he has been stopped "at least 10 times" around his neighborhood.
"They ask you, 'What you doin'?' and they say I look suspect," said the teen, whose name is being withheld by The News.
"I just got stopped last month just for walking to my building - they checked my pockets and everything. It's illegal - they shouldn't be doing it."
Yet according to court records, he pleaded guilty last month to criminal possession of a weapon - a switchblade that cops found on him.
Just six blocks away from where Hazzard walked, cops fired 41 shots at an unarmedAmadou Diallo in 1999, killing him as he reached for his wallet. The case spurred allegations that stop-and-frisks are racially motivated.
That incident comes to Hazzard's mind when cops halt him.
"Now, I just assume the position and drop my wallet on the ground because I don't want to get hit 41 times," he said.
This outfit, he says, makes him a target for cops to stop and frisk him - something which he says has happened 17 times since he moved to Soundview two years ago.
None of the encounters resulted in arrest, he said.
The NYPD stop-and-frisk policy has recently come under fire again after aStaten Island cop was charged with falsely arresting a black man following a stop and then bragging on tape, "I fried another n-----."
The case prompted protests at stationhouses and calls for a federal investigation into the police tactic, which was used 362,150 times in the city in the first six months of this year - predominantly on black and Hispanic males.
There were 22,365 people stopped, questioned and frisked in the Bronx between April 1 and June 30 - the latest figures available - according to a quarterly report released by the NYPD, with 2,876 of the Bronx stops resulting in arrests or summonses.
Ninety-one percent of the people stopped in the Bronx were male, and 92% of those stopped were black or Hispanic.
The NYPD maintains that the controversial policy is a crime deterrent.
The Daily News conducted a random survey of 20 men of color, ranging in age from 14 to 35, in three Bronx neighborhoods - Soundview, Fordham, and The Hub. Nine said they had been stopped and frisked by police at least once.
A resounding complaint was that cops patrolling apartment buildings ask to see entrants' keys or IDs to make sure they are residents.
"I was putting the key into the front door of my building and they stopped me, asked who I am and I had to show them my ID," Rob Gomez, 21, said of a recent stop he was involved in as he entered his building on E. 143rd St.
Landlords of private residential buildings can ask officers to conduct drug sweeps in buildings through the Operation Clean Halls program.
"People have a right to live in safe buildings and neighborhoods, but this is not police protection - this is police intrusion," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
"It's pure harassment to put people into the system [putting their names on file via stop-and-frisk forms] who haven't done anything wrong."
The NYPD says the practice is backed by a state criminal procedure law - allowing an officer to stop a person reasonably believed to have committed or about to commit a crime.
Dressed in baggy jeans, a T-shirt and baseball cap, a 17-year-old Fordham teen said he has been stopped "at least 10 times" around his neighborhood.
"They ask you, 'What you doin'?' and they say I look suspect," said the teen, whose name is being withheld by The News.
"I just got stopped last month just for walking to my building - they checked my pockets and everything. It's illegal - they shouldn't be doing it."
Yet according to court records, he pleaded guilty last month to criminal possession of a weapon - a switchblade that cops found on him.
Just six blocks away from where Hazzard walked, cops fired 41 shots at an unarmedAmadou Diallo in 1999, killing him as he reached for his wallet. The case spurred allegations that stop-and-frisks are racially motivated.
That incident comes to Hazzard's mind when cops halt him.
"Now, I just assume the position and drop my wallet on the ground because I don't want to get hit 41 times," he said.
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