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Read the press release here.

Gay Rights Groups To Protest Stop-and-Frisk Policy in Jackson Heights

By Smriti Rao | June 6, 2012 5:12pm
Protesters march along Third Avenue on Jan. 27, 2012 to denounce the police policy of stop, frisk and question.
Protesters march along Third Avenue on Jan. 27, 2012 to denounce the police policy of stop, frisk and question.
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DNAinfo/Patrick Wall

JACKSON HEIGHTS—Gay rights groups in Queens plan to speak out against the NYPD’s ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy during a rally in Jackson Heights Thursday.

The neighborhood is one of the top three in the city, along with East New York and Brownsville, with the highest number of stop-and-frisk instances, a DNAinfo.com New York has found. Some 18,000 stops were reported in Jackson Heights alone last year, Council Member Daniel Dromm's office said. 

Members of the non-profit group Make The Road N.Y., which will be participating in Thursday’s march, said the NYPD’s practice, which they call discriminatory, had to end.

“Enough is enough, NYPD needs to end ‘stop and frisk’ practices that result in discrimination and false profiling towards Trans-gender Latin and other community members in Jackson Heights,” Make the Road N.Y. said.

The 4 p.m. march is part of a larger effort by the LGBT community in New York to draw attention to the police’s stop-and-frisk policy. On Tuesday, top LGBT organizations in the city met at the Stonewall Inn to announce their campaign against the policy.

A silent march has been planned for June 17 against racial profiling. That march is scheduled to kick off at 1 p.m. at 110th Street between Fifth and Lenox avenues, organizers said.

The NYPD’s stopped-and-frisked almost 700,000 people last year—most of them black and Hispanic, a report by the NYCLU revealed.

But Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have been vocal supporters of the program, arguing it has helped pushed the city’s crime rate down to the lowest levels since 1990.