New Harlem Cop Team Performed Illegal Stop-And-Frisks, Study Finds

HARLEM, NY — Controversial NYPD teams used illegal stop-and-frisk tactics at alarming rates last year, according to a new analysis from a federal monitor.

What's more, 97 percent of Neighborhood Safety Teams stop-and-frisk stops targeted Black and Latino New Yorkers, the study shows.

Numbers in Harlem's 23rd and 32nd precinct raised alarm bells for independent monitor Mylan Denerstein in an audit of the 2022 NYPD initiative released Monday.

"Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully," Denerstein writes.

23rd Precinct | Southern East Harlem

East Harlem's 23rd Precinct was one of 12 commands where at least half of the searches — the final step of stop-and-frisk — conducted on people were improper, according to the report.

The monitor sampled just two stops, but the results were "disappointing" all the same, the monitor wrote.

Half were unlawful, placing it among a dozen NYPD precincts to earn a failing grade.

25th Precinct | Northern East Harlem

Roughly 30 percent of NCT stops in the 25 were unlawful, in comparison to just 10 percent of stops made by local precinct officers, data show.

32nd Precinct | Northern Harlem

A lack of submitted data rang alarm bells in Harlem's 32nd Precinct.

In the first three months of the Neighborhood Safety Team working in the 32nd Precinct, the monitor did not receive a single report.

That absence of information prompted the monitor to follow up with the Harlem precinct, which resulted in discovering that there were only six stop reports completed by NST officers in the 32nd Precinct, according to the report.

"The fact that there were very few stop reports by NST officers in these two commands should have raised red flags about possible underreporting or inactivity," the report wrote. "Either these teams did not properly document the stops they made, or they were not policing proactively. This points to insufficient oversight."

When the Neighborhood Safety Teams were announced last year as a form of replacement for the disbanded plainclothes units in New York City after years of accusations of racist policing against Black and Brown New Yorkers, a central talking point from the city was that it wouldn't repeat the discriminatory past "mistakes."

The report found, though, that the units are making unlawful stops at a 9 percent higher rate than the overall department in 2020.

Despite the findings from the monitor's report on the new rollout, a spokesperson from the NYPD told AMNY that it think the Neighborhood Safety Teams "engage with the public lawfully and constitutionally."

“The NYPD is still reviewing the Monitor’s report. However, the Department disagrees with the conclusions of the Monitor with respect to some of the encounters the team reviewed," the NYPD added in its statement.

The Legal Aid Society says that the findings from the monitor point exactly to what advocates were worried about when the new unit was announced.

"These early audit results confirm what Legal Aid and other advocates feared when Mayor Adams created the units just over one year ago — that Neighborhood Safety Teams are, like their Anti-Crime and Street Crime Unit predecessors, rife with misconduct and prone to abuse the rights of the very people they are tasked with protecting," Legal Aid said in a news release.

Denerstein concluded her report by stating that the Neighborhood Safety Team's performance was "below acceptable standards."

"The Department must take corrective action immediately to remedy this situation, and it must address accountability," she wrote.