Philly stop-and-frisks, pot arrests, remain high and unjustified according to court filing
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir
The Philadelphia Police Department has failed to rein in stops-and-frisks without reasonable suspicion as required by a 2011 consent decree, according to a report filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union and civil-rights law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg in federal court.
“This report tells us that the city has not achieved the goal of ensuring that its stop-and-frisk practices are legal and fair,” said lawyer David Rudovsky in a statement. “The PPD will need to improve its own monitoring and supervision systems to meet that goal, or the court will be asked to impose appropriate sanctions.”
The audit found that between 43 percent and 47 percent of stops and frisks are initiated without reasonable suspicion, while the Police Department's audit found that up to 4 percent of stops lacked reasonable suspicion. The discrepancy drew criticism from rights advocates. The PPD, according to the report, continue to invoke unjustifiable rationales to stop and frisk, including loitering, individuals "obstructing" the sidewalk, and panhandling.
The report did find that the number of pedestrian stops fell from 253,000 in 2009 to 215,000 in 2012, a decrease of nearly 15 percent. The report found racial differences: 76 percent of stops and 85 percent of frisks were of non-whites. But guns were recovered in just 0.16 percent of stops and contraband in 1.57 percent, and only 5.29 percent of stops resulted in an arrest.
Arrests for marijuana possession only rose slightly from 2011 to 2012, from 785 to 798. Some 84.4 percent of those arrested solely for pot were African-American, and 60 percent of pot arrests resulted from pedestrian stops. The report notes that whites use marijuana at a higher rate than African-Americans, who make up just 43.4 percent of the city's population.
In June 2011, civil rights groups and the City of Philadelphia settled a class-action lawsuit (whose members included then-state representative, now-Sheriff Jewell Williams) filed in U.S. District Court. The agreement established a consent decree and named Temple University Beasley School of Law Dean JoAnne A. Epps its independent monitor.
Today's report is the first issued since the Police Department implemented new protocols and oversight measures, according to the filing. In December 2012, "the parties agreed to a plan for the development of a new PPD electronic data system that is designed to provide more accurate information on stops and frisks and which will enable the parties to more effectively conduct audits and analysis of the data."
