A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a key component of the New York Police Department’s aggressive stop-and-frisk program, under which police stopped more young black men in 2011 than the city’s total population of young black men.

In the first federal court decision to find that some elements of the program violate the Fourth Amendment, U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin held that police officers in the Bronx are routinely stopping individuals outside private residential buildings without reasonable suspicion that they are trespassing, and with great consequence:

For those of us who do not fear being stopped as we approach or leave our own homes or those of our friends and families, it is difficult to believe that residents of one of our boroughs live under such a threat.

The stops are part of the Trespass Affidavit Program, also known as “Clean Halls,” in which property managers in the Bronx can ask the police to patrol their buildings and arrest trespassers. Scheindlin found that officers have misconstrued the program as allowing stops for anyone outside these properties, without regard for whether there is evidence that they are actually trespassing. Scheindlin describes the story of one of the name plaintiffs in the case:

[A]fter finishing his work for the day as a security guard, Charles Bradley, a black fifty-one year old resident of the Bronx, took the subway to visit his fiancée, Lisa Michelle Rappa, as they had arranged the evening before.

When Bradley arrived at Rappa’s apartment building, a young man who lived on the first floor and knew of Bradley’s and Rappa’s relationship let Bradley into the building. Bradley then walked up the stairs to Rappa’s apartment on the fifth floor and knocked. Because Rappa is deaf in one ear, Bradley waited a minute or two. When there was still no response, he returned downstairs and left the building. Outside, he looked up toward Rappa’s window.

While Bradley was standing on the sidewalk, an unmarked green police van approached and an officer in the passenger seat … gestured for Bradley to come over. After Bradley approached the van, the officer got out and asked, “What are you doing here?”

Bradley explained he was there to see Rappa, and that he worked as a security guard. Bradley testified that the officer responded to his attempts to explain his presence by suggesting Bradley was acting “like a fucking animal,” searched Bradley’s pockets, then told Bradley to place his hands behind his back. Once Bradley was handcuffed, the officer placed him in the van, where there were two other officers. While the van drove away, the officers began to question Bradley: “When was the last time you saw a gun? When was the last time you got high? When was the last time you bought some drugs?”

After twenty or thirty minutes in the van, the officers stopped at the station house. Bradley was taken into a room, stripped, and told to wait. He was searched in “inappropriate areas.” For the next two hours, he waited in a cell with other people who had been arrested. He was then fingerprinted and given a desk appearance ticket and a date to appear in court to answer the criminal charge of trespassing. Later, Bradley’s defense attorney provided the Bronx DA’s office with a notarized letter from Rappa stating that Bradley had been visiting her. “[A]t that point in time,” Bradley testified, “paperwork was submitted to me stating that the People of New York declined to prosecute.”

This encounter in and of itself is a disturbing example of how these police stops play out – resulting not just in an unreasonable stop and interrogation, but in subsequent harassing treatment such as strip-searching, detention, and verbal intimidation that far exceeds the scope of any perceived threat.

But perhaps the most significant aspect of the 157-page opinion is Judge Scheindlin’s explanation of the even greater potential cost for people not fortunate enough to have a public defender like Bradley’s:

The stakes of “field interrogation” by the police have dramatically risen since Terry [v. Ohio, which established the legal standard for stop and frisks,] was decided in 1968. The use of incarceration has increased, sentences have grown, the threat of lengthy incarceration has created new incentives to plead guilty, and the collateral consequences of a conviction — on employment, housing, access to government programs, and even the right to vote or serve on a jury — have become more common and more severe. If an unjustified stop happens to lead to an unjustified arrest for trespassing, as it did in Charles Bradley’s case, not every overburdened public defender will have the wherewithal to obtain a notarized letter from the defendant’s host explaining that the defendant was invited, as Bronx Defender Cara Suvall did on behalf of Bradley. When considering the relative hardships faced by the parties, it is important to consider the potentially dire and long-lasting consequences that can follow from unconstitutional stops.

This ruling is only a preliminary injunction, meaning the judge found the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their case, with an order that police cease performing trespass stops without reasonable suspicion, and a forthcoming hearing on other potential remedies. The lawsuit filed by a class of blacks and Latinos is one of three to challenge the city’s stop-and-frisk program. Since initial outrage over stark evidence that police racially profile in their stops and interrogations without any improvement in public safety outcomes, NYPD somewhat decreased the number of stop-and-frisks. But in the first nine months of 2012, the overwhelming majority —  87 percent — of the some 1,400 individuals stopped every day were black and Latino.

In the first nine months of 2012, the NYPD stopped almost 400,000 New Yorkers in its aggressive stop-and-frisk program, or 1,400 every day. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, this number actually represents a 30 percent drop compared to 2011, though police continue to disproportionately target minorities with equally poor results:

The latest stop-and-frisk report shows that the NYPD stopped and interrogated New Yorkers 105,988 times between July 1 and Sept. 30. About 84 percent of those encounters did not result in arrests or tickets. About 87 percent of those stopped were black or Latino. Whites were around 10 percent of people stopped.

NYPD uses vague criteria, often stopping people for displaying “furtive movement,” and overwhelmingly targets young black and Latino men. For example, although they account for 4.7 percent of NYC’s population, young black and Latino men accounted for 41.6 percent of the stops in 2011. And the program has failed to get guns off the streets. Homicides have dropped 20.5 percent to a record low, but police rarely find a gun.

NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program has a 90 percent failure rate, says NYCLU’s Donna Lieberman. “The drop in stop-and-frisks coupled with the drop in gun violence contradicts the NYPD’s narrative that stopping and frisking every person of color in sight is necessary to reduce crime in New York City,” she said.

Reacting to the New York Police Department’s aggressive stop-and-frisk tactics, the Bronx district attorney’s office has halted all prosecutions of people at public housing projects for trespassing, unless and until they can conduct an interview with the arresting officer. This is the “first known instance in which a district attorney has questioned any segment of arrests resulting from stop-and-frisk tactics,” according to the New York Times.

The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics came under fire after news emerged that police stops in New York City increased by more than half a million between 2003 and 2011, and that New York officers conducted more stops of young black men in 2011 than there are young black men in the city. A significant proportion of NYPD stops, 10 to 15 percent, occur at public housing facilities, where police can arrest someone who they believe does not live at the housing project and is not a guest.

After receiving numerous complaints from defense attorneys about trespass arrests, Jeanette Rucker of the Bronx DA’s office conducted an investigation that yielded disturbing results. The New York Times explains:

[S]he found that “in many (but not all) of the cases the defendants arrested were either legitimate tenants or invited guests,” she wrote.

In some cases, Ms. Rucker claimed, the police arrested people even when there was persuasive evidence that they were not trespassing, citing “several instances where defendants who were guests, had the person whom they were visiting verify this fact to the arresting officer, yet the defendant was arrested anyway.” In those cases, the deposition from the arresting officer “indicated the defendant did not know the name of any tenant or the apartment number.”

From 2009 to 2011, the police arrested more than 16,000 people on trespass charges in public housing, according to a report filed as part of the federal litigation over the arrests.

According to another account by counsel for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, some officers were under the mistaken impression that they “were entitled to stop and question anyone inside” public housing.

The findings led the DA’s office to require in-person interviews with arresting officers before prosecuting people for trespass in public housing. But as the Legal Aid Society in New York’s chief lawyer Steven Banks says, this is exactly the type of thing prosecutors should be doing anyway to verify the legal support for these arrests.

Over the last few months, the number of stops has dropped a dramatic 34 percent, following public outcry, new NYPD policies and three court rulings that question NYPD tactics. But that has not changed the impression that the stops are deeply discriminatory. A poll out earlier this week found that 64 percent of New Yorkers, and 80 percent of African Americans, think the police favor whites. The poll also found that a majority of New Yorkers think stop-and-frisk has led to the harassment of innocent people.

The New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program is demonstrably ineffective and damaging to police reputation. Now it comes to light that stop-and-frisk is also very expensive. The New York City taxpayers paid a total of $22.8 million to end 35 lawsuits against the NYPD worth over $100,000 each in the past year, DNAinfo reports.

The NYPD has been hit with lawsuit after lawsuit claiming police violated civil rights between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012. Examples include a 12-year-old girl arrested for doodling on her desk with a green erasable marker and a 38-year-old veteran who was punched and pepper-sprayed while discussing Memorial Day barbecue plans with friends on a street corner. The two plaintiffs received $115,000 and $324,000 respectively. A class-action lawsuit accusing police of illegally arresting people for loitering cost the city $15 million.

Unsurprisingly, the settlements coincide with a rise in civil rights complaints:

The payments also come as accusations of civil rights violations have risen in recent years, according to the city comptroller’s office. Between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011, 2,241 civil rights claims were filed against the NYPD — up 23 percent from the 1,826 claims filed a year earlier.

The city’s overzealous stop-and-frisk program is notorious for its disproportionate targeting of young black and Latino men. The number of police stops has increased 600 percent since 2002, and in 2011 alone, the NYPD stopped young black men more times than the total number of young black men in New York City. Meanwhile, the number of guns pulled off the streets during these random searches has decreased, and the number of shootings remain unchanged.

The broadest legal challenge to stop-and-frisk yet will go to court next March, arguing the police improperly implement the program along racial lines.

The New York Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk initiative may not be getting guns off the street or reducing crime, but it is certainly making an impact on public opinion. A new poll by the New York Times found that a significant majority of New Yorkers think police favor whites over blacks. The sentiment is especially strong within the African American community; 80 percent of the respondents agreed that police favor whites, compared to 48 percent of white New Yorkers. The poll also found that a majority of black New Yorkers think stop-and-frisk has led to the harassment of innocent people.

This perception may come from the fact that the NYPD made more stops of young black men in 2011 than the total number of young black men in the city. Police have been accused of practicing racial profiling through stop-and-frisk, which would explain why attitudes towards the policy fall along racial lines:

Opinions about stop-and-frisk fall are divided by race. Fifty-five percent of whites described the use of the tactic as acceptable; 56 percent of blacks called it excessive. Among Hispanics, 48 percent said it was acceptable and 44 percent said it was excessive. Republicans, independents and residents of Queens generally support the practice; Democrats and Manhattanites generally deem it excessive.

Overall, 64 percent of New Yorkers say the police favors one race over the other, a steep rise from the early years of the Bloomberg administration, when less than half of residents agreed with that sentiment. The perception of police favoritism has not been as widespread since the final years of Mr. Giuliani’s tenure, when race relations were noticeably more tense. (The question has not been asked in a Times poll since 2003.)

These views, in many cases, appear to have been influenced by personal experience. A third of the New Yorkers surveyed, including 37 percent of black people, said police officers had used insulting language toward them. A fifth of the respondents said they had been stopped by a police officer because of their race or ethnicity, and almost all were black or Hispanic, and more likely to be young and male.

Besides damaging their relationship with minority communities, the NYPD has also alienated journalists and activists through the program, prompting several allegations against police officers for beating up, intimidating and arresting anyone who films them.

In spite of the NYPD’s aggressive stop-and-frisk program, the number of guns seized off the street has dropped, DNAinfo reports. The controversial practice of randomly stopping and searching people — often black and Latino young men — has increased 600 percent since 2002, while the number of guns seized during these searches has steadily fallen.

DNAinfo’s analysis of NYPD data found:

During the past two years alone, the number of firearms seized by police has fallen 13.5 percent from 3,908 in 2009 with 510,742 frisks, to 3,443 last year, when the NYPD stopped and frisked a record-busting 685,724 New Yorkers. And last week the NYPD reported that during the first half of this year, firearm seizures continues to fall to 1,613, compared to 1,705 during the first six months of last year. The downturn came as the NYPD conducted 337,434 stops-and-frisks — a figure that keeps the NYPD on pace to match last year’s record-busting total.

By comparison, during Bloomberg’s first year in office in 2002, the NYPD recovered 4,069 guns — but the police stop-and-frisked only 96,000 people that year, according to NYPD data.

The NYPD justifies its stop-and-frisk program with this same data, attributing the fact that people are carrying fewer guns to a fear of getting stopped. But an earlier DNAinfo report also found the practice has had little impact on gun violence in New York, which has hovered around 1,800 for the past decade. The drop in gun seizures and almost unchanged shooting rates suggests stop-and-frisk has been ineffective even as it becomes more common.

The most noticeable effect the program has produced is the massive number of arrests for low-level marijuana possession — 50,684 in 2011, more than for any other offense. The police have continued to stop, frisk, and arrest young black and Latino men for marijuana possession, in spite of New York’s decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana possession and Commissioner Ray Kelly’s directive explicitly telling officers not to make misdemeanor arrests for marijuana possession.

As a result, the ramped up stop-and-frisk program has damaged minority communities’ trust in the police. In 2011, the NYPD stopped young black men more times than the total number of young black men in the entire city.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Pennsylvania resident Gregory Rizer, who was arrested in January for recording a police officer aggressively questioning his quadriplegic friend. The officer also confiscated Rizer’s cell phone.

When Rizer complained to the mayor’s office about the arrest, the Point Marion Police Department arrested him at home and charged him with violating Pennsylvania’s wiretap law, which bans audio recording unless all parties consent. The district attorney has since removed the charges and returned Rizer’s cell phone – without the recording. The ACLU argues that Rizer was within his rights to record the officer because “the state’s Wiretap Act does not apply if the person being recorded does not have a reasonable ‘expectation of privacy.’” ACLU cooperating lawyer Glen Downey explained,

“The explosion of technology that allows almost every citizen to document and record the interactions between police and civilians makes it incumbent that both the officers and those seeking to record them understand that officers cannot shield themselves from public scrutiny by invoking wiretap laws. Police officers performing their official duties do not possess the requisite reasonable expectation of privacy necessary to be covered by the statute.”

There have been reports from across the country of police officers interfering with cell phone recording of their actions. Earlier this month, the New York City Police Department put out a flyer warning against a couple who record “stop-and-frisk” searches in the city. New York’s ACLU chapter released a phone app, “Stop-and-Frisk Watch,” to help New Yorkers hold police officers executing these controversial searches accountable.

Last week, New Jersey’s ACLU chapter released a similar app, “Police Tape,” an Android phone app that allows users to discreetly videotape and record police officers. The app also explains American civil rights and allows users to send recordings to ACLU databases for backup storage.

– Ben Sherman