One former narcotics detective, Stephen Anderson, admitted it was common practice for cops to plant evidence and frame innocent people in order to inflate the arrest stats and meet their quotas. A high-ranking police officer was caught on tape ordering a Latino cop, a whistleblower, to target “male blacks 14 to 21” for stop and frisk because they commit crimes. One federal judge said the force is plagued by “widespread falsification” on the part of arresting officers. The corruption is put into its proper context when one considers that 5 percent of NYPD officers make 4o percent of resisting arrest charges, and 15 percent of cops account for nearly three-quarters of such arrests. Meanwhile, of the 179 fatalities by NYPD officers over 15 years—86 percent of whom were black or Latino where information on race was available— only three cases led to indictments, and only one resulted in a conviction. Given these unresolved and unaddressed racial problems in the department, it is no wonder that NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks—the highest ranking black cop on the force—resigned. And it is no wonder that black officers feel threatened when they are off duty, out of uniform, and racially profiled by their white peers. “As an officer, I’ve been thrown against the wall. As an officer, I’ve been shown no respect,” said NYPD Officer Adhyl Polanco on Democracy Now! “And I’ve been thrown against the wall off-duty, because…the mentality that Patrick Lynch and many other officers don’t want to hear about. They don’t have to speak to their kids,” he added. Polanco spoke out against stop and frisk, and taped department conversations detailing the policy, which punished officers that failed to meet a quota of stops.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 17:24:51 +0000