The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk Policy

A secret audio recording of a stop-and-frisk in action sheds unprecedented light on a practice that has put the city's young people of color in the NYPD's crosshairs. Read the full story at: http://www.thenation.com/article/170413/stopped-and-frisked-being-fking-mutt-video

Directed by Ross Tuttle
Produced by Ross Tuttle, Erin Schneider, Stephen Maing
Camera by Ross Tuttle, Stephen Maing
Editing by Stephen Maing, Carla Ruff

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Captions by: The Radical Access Mapping Project, on Un-ceded Coast Salish Territories, 2013
http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/

[officer] You look very suspicious.

[Alvin] 'Cause y'all always looking like crazy...

[ sounds of intense physical struggle and yelling ]

[Alvin] Why you pushing me like that for?

That's exactly how some shit will go down, just like that, just like that.

People don't like police because of the harrassment,

and what civilians don't understand

is that the police department is like forcing us

to do these unreasonable stops, or you're gonna get penalized.

[reporter]

[commissioner] Well I think that the Mayor is absolutely correct.

[reporter] Some people are just very hurt by it and upset when they are stopped unnecessarily.

[commissioner] Well I understand that, some people, y'know,

you're taking away at the very least, you're taking away people's time.

So I understand people may not be happy with it,

but I can also assure you that I go to communities,

communities of colour, and people want more.

[reporter] They want more stop-and-frisks?

[commissioner] Absolutely.

I had this captain who walked into the precinct

and gave a speech about harassing the public.

His words were "we're gonna go out there and we're gonna violate some rights".

We hear it from the captain down, we want "250s", this is Stop, Question and Frisk.

[ phone dialing ]

I was walking home from my girlfriend's house

and a cop car went past me.

A couple of seconds later I heard the car turn around

and they just popped out, they just all just jumped out of the car.

I decided to record it because I was getting stopped a lot

and I didn't have evidence of a cop being disrespectful or anything,

so I pressed the button and recorded the whole thing.

[Alvin] I just got stopped like 2 blocks away...

[Alvin] Cause y'all are always lookin at me like crazy...

[ back and forth ]

[officer] Listen to me, listen to me.

[officer] ...because you keep doin' that shit, man, we stopped you last time...

[officer] Who the fuck are you talkin' to??

[Alvin] You asked me why I had a book bag on...

[officer] Who the fuck you think you're talkin' to?

[Alvin] You asked me if I had a book bag on

[ back and forth, officers swearing ]

[Alvin] Why are you touchin' me for?

[ sounds of struggle ]

He was holding me, he's going through pockets, going up, down,

he's goin through my sweater

and that's when he told me to keep my hands on my head,

so I was like this the whole time.

[Alvin] What for?

[officer] Shut your fuckin' mouth kid.

[Alvin] Why am I being arrested for?

[officer] Shut your mouth.

[Alvin] What am I being arrested for?

He decided to take my hands from here and he put em behind my back like that.

[officer yelling] Shut your fuckin' mouth!

[Alvin] You askin' me questions.

[Alvin] I was...

[officer] Have some fuckin' respect.

[Alvin] Cause you always stop me for no reason...

[Alvin] Why, why are you pushing...

[Alvin] You're gonna break my arm?

[officer] Who's your father? Your father's on the job?

[officer/s] Shut the fuck up [ etc. ]

[Alvin] You're gonna punch me in my face?

[Alvin] ...got a phone...

[officer] ...in Traffic? He's a Traffic cop?

[officer] Figures.

[officer, mocking] Traffic cop.

[Alvin] Yep. Don't touch me...

[ sounds of struggle ]

[Alvin recorded] Why you pushin me like that for?

[officer] Shut your fuckin' mouth.

[Alvin] Why you pushin me like that for?

While they holding me, the sergeant's holding me like this,

he's like "i'm gonna break your arm"

I'm like, you're gonna break my arm?

He's like yeah, and I'm gonna punch you in the face,

I was like, you're gonna punch me in the face?

He's like yeah, he's like and then I'm gonna arrest you.

I'm like, arrest me for what?

And he's like, for being a mutt.

So he grabbed me by my book bag and he started pushin me down,

so I'm going backwards down the hill,

and he just kept pushing me and pushing me

and looked like he was gonna hit me.

I feel like they was trying to make me resist, or start fighting back.

[recording]

[Alvin] Why you pushing me like that for?

[officer] I swear to god...

[Alvin repeating] Why you pushing me like that?

[officer yelling] Take a fucking walk!!

...fucking [ inaudible ].

[ sounds of intense physical struggle and officer/s swearing ]

I'm mad just hearing that, like,

Not many words really could describe that,

it's just disturbing.

But that's exactly what happened, like,

I can relate to it, cause I know that situation.

They just don't got no respect for us,

and they wonder why we don't have respect for them.

And for them to just call him a name like that,

it's just like, that's just crazy.

[filmmaker] Do you think that during stops that some police officers try to provoke,

so they can justify an arrest?

[officer] Of course they do.

A lot of police officers be trying to set civilians off,

and then once they start talking, start cursing, they can lock em up for anything.

[officer] There was two minorities leaning against the wall, they weren't doing anything,

and my sergeant ordered me to write them "blocking pedestrian traffic".

If you're a certain ethnicity, standing on the corner,

lieutenants, sergeants, they have no problem searching you, violating your rights,

and racial profiling.

There was one statement that the sergeant said about what he used to do.

He used to stop a guy walkin down the street with baggy pants, his underwear hangin out,

and he'd just stop him.

He says "I know he's probably up to nothin', but I just stop him anyway, just to get a 250"

There's this one cop that everybody in the neighbourhood knows,

stops us like 3 times already, he was like now come here.

So they got out the car, the threw him on the front of the car,

I'm still walkin', he spun me around and punched me in my stomach,

started just pattin us down, and just left us there.

[commissioner] What we're trying to do is make certain that it's done as professionally as possible,

that proper respect is shown, and is done according to the law.

This goes all the way up, all the way up to commissioner's office,

I say even the mayor's office where they're trying to be proactive and say

"look, we're stopping people, we're getting guns and drugs off the streets".

But it's not. I think it's, of the 600,000 people that were stopped last year,

only 1% of those that were stopped were carrying weapons.

[clips from newscasts] The NYPD's controversial Stop And Frisk policy...

Last year, New York police officers stopped and interrogated people nearly 686,000 times...

... a lawsuit raises serious questions about quotas, racial profiling, and constitutional rights...

The public isn't aware of what's happening

but everything is being looked at as far as numbers,

and it's a numbers game, ok?

What did you get last year?

Well you have to match it and give me more this year.

[tape recording]

They're trying to keep all of this stuff quiet,

so this is my proof that they're putting pressure on me to write summonses.

Commanders are trying to be proactive, or show that they're being proactive,

and here you have a system where people are told

"get those numbers to where they should be, and you're gonna get your promotion."

The commanding officer wants to become a deputy inspector,

the executive officer wants to become a commanding officer,

if you do well by keeping the arrests up and the summonses up,

you will be promoted to the next rank.

So they put pressure on the police officers to generate numbers and arrests.

I mean let's be real, it is a quota.

Nobody wants to call it that, but that's what it is.

They call it a performance objective, they call it a goal, they can mask it however they want.

It's a quota, and it does exist.

Some of us under the stress make them up.

Some of us under the stress stop innocent people and search them.

And there are certain units out there that will just run around and stop everybody.

What happens to the officer, if they don't do what the police department tells them to do

as far as these quotas?

They will come after you.

Come after you, meaning transfers, give you low evaluations.

They give you unwanted assignments,

put you in a post which is very dangerous, high crime, by yourself, in a corner.

This is a form of retaliation.

Basically, a change in tours, put you on the midnight, they make you look bad on paperwork

and that paperwork with trail you for the rest of your police career.

And knowing that your livelihood's at stake, you meet the quota.

It does create this feeling of "hey listen I gotta get my numbers."

When you put that pressure on the officer

this us vs them mentality does exist.

When I came into this police department I wanted to help people,

but the civilian population are being hunted.

Instead of being protected by us, they're being hunted, and we're being hated.

The police department is pushing the new guys to be bounty hunters,

and I use that word because that's exactly what it is:

they're hunting.

There's a lot of officers who are fed up and want to do something about it,

and there's people who are scared.

There's a lot of officers that would like to tell their story, but nobody wants to hear the truth.

Nobody wants to hear the bad.

You need police, but the police department needs to change things.

At one point I did want to be a cop, to help people,

and mostly just, like, to be able to wear a badge and a uniform, be proud of it.

But now I feel like I'm not sure because they're not here to help people any more,

they're just there to like, stop and humiliate them, make em feel bad.

There's no excuses for the way they treated me.

This one individual was thinkin about doin NYPD,

the first thing I told him is "definitely not".

This job, racial profiles, will force you to do things that you don't wanna do.

We're supposed to be the best in the world?

We're the best at making money, and we're the best at arresting and summonsing everybody.