By Rich Bockmann
Days after the city filed notice it would appeal a federal judge’s ruling on stop-and-frisk, a retired police captain from Queens Village stood with others earlier this week to voice her support for a package of NYPD reform bills the City Council was scheduled to vote on Thursday.
“I am troubled by what the mayor and the Police Commissioner are telling us, that we have to choose between safety and justice,” Rev. Karyn Carlo, who retired from the department 11 years ago after two decades on the job, said at a news conference at 1 Police Plaza Tuesday.
“They tell us that, if we want a safe city, we have to accept that the price of that safety is that some New Yorkers will have to live under siege in their own communities, unable to even walk out their front doors without fearing yet another stop and frisk, not because of anything they have done, but because of who they are – black, Latino, disabled, LGBT, Muslim or poor,” she added. “We can have a city that is both safe and just.”
The council was scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to override Bloomberg’s veto of the Community Safety Act, which would create an inspector general to oversee the NYPD and expand the city’s anti-profiling law.
Late last week the city Law Department filed notice it plans to appeal Manhattan District Judge Shira Scheindlin’s ruling that the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk was unconstitutional and her appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the department’s reforms.
Beyond the notice, details of the specifics of the appeal were scant. During a news last week, Bloomberg said he took issue with several public statements Scheindlin made both prior to and during the trial.
After the district court forwards a copy of the notice, the next step is for the city to ask the appeals court to step in and stay Scheindlin’s orders while the challenge is being considered.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, the civil liberties group that argued the lawsuit challenging stop-and-frisk, released a statement expressing disappointment at the administration’s decision.
“New Yorkers have denounced these tactics for over a decade and now the federal court has spoken,” the statement read. “It is time for Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly to do the right thing and listen to and address these concerns.”
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
