Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that New York City was ending its legal battle against reforms to the controversial stop-and-frisk practices.
De Blasio had made reforming stop-and-frisk a central part of his campaign pledges, and promised at a news conference Thursday a "commitment to fix the fundamental problems that enabled stop-and-frisk to grow out of control and violate the rights of innocent New Yorkers."
The deal reached marks the end of the city's challenge of Floyd v. City of New York, which was brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and challenged the New York Police Department's racial profiling and stop-and-frisks.
In August a federal district court ruled the practice unconstitutional and ordered reforms to it, but in October a federal appeals court blocked the implementation of those reforms following an appeal made by the administration of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
According to the terms of the agreement de Blasio announced Thursday, a court-appointed monitor will oversee the NYPD’s reform of its stop-and-frisk policy for three years.
"Today is the beginning of a long-overdue process: the reform of the NYPD to end illegal and racially discriminatory policing," said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren. "For too long, communities of color have felt under siege by the police, and young Black and Latino men have disproportionately been the target. We are glad to have reached an agreement with the City and commend Mayor de Blasio for promising to drop the appeal and embracing reform. We are eager to finally begin creating real change.”
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