NYCLU Statement on Former Mayor Bloomberg Apologizing for Stop-and-Frisk

NEW YORK – Today, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized for his administration’s aggressive stop-and-frisk policies.

During the twelve years of the Bloomberg administration, NYPD officers recorded over 5 million stops, and at the height of stop-and-frisk in 2011, the NYPD reported making nearly 700,000 stops. Most of the people stopped were Black and Latinx, and nearly all were innocent.

An analysis of stop-and-frisk in New York City since 2002 can be viewed here.

The New York Civil Liberties Union issued the following statement from Executive Director, Donna Lieberman in response to Bloomberg’s comments:

“For years under the Bloomberg administration, police officers stopped hundreds of thousands of people per year, most of them young Black and Brown men. Up until now, Bloomberg was a staunch defendant of the sweeping use of stop-and-frisk, in fact claiming that officers did not stop enough Black and Brown people. Today, Bloomberg finally apologized.

It has taken too long, but we are pleased that Bloomberg has finally acknowledged what we all know about stop-and-frisk: its overuse in the Bloomberg era violated the constitutional rights of New Yorkers and further deepened mistrust between police officers and the people they served. But broken windows policing, which relies heavily on stop-and-frisk, is not a remnant of New York’s past. It is a daily reality for many New Yorkers. Today’s statement just scratches the surface of the harms caused by broken windows policing and what New Yorkers need to hear is a plan to end police violence and restore trust between officers and communities.”