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Stop-and-Frisk Targets Brooklyn Minorities, but Organizer Sees Improvement

By Alan Neuhauser | February 5, 2013 6:01pm
 The 76th Precinct covers Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Red Hook and Gowanus.
The 76th Precinct covers Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Red Hook and Gowanus.
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DNAinfo/Heather Holland

RED HOOK — People in south Brooklyn who were stopped, questioned and frisked by police in 2011, were overwhelmingly from minority groups, according to a report released by the NYPD Monday evening.

In the 72nd Precinct, which covers Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, more than 80 percent of those stopped were Hispanic.

By contrast, in the 76th Precinct, which patrols Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Gowanus, about 44 percent of those stopped were black, and just over 33 percent were Hispanic.

Both precincts referred questions to the NYPD's press office, but 72nd Precinct Community Affairs Officer Dean Hanan emphasized that "we as police officers utilize all the tools given us to provide the best law enforcement services to the communities of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace."

Hispanic residents comprised just under half the population of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, and just over 60 percent of the precinct's "known crime suspects" are Hispanic, the NYPD report states. Asians and whites, by contrast, each make up a quarter of the neighborhoods' residents, and blacks just 3 percent.

Within the 76th Precinct, about 60 percent of the population is white, roughly 14 percent is black, 22 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent Asian.

Stop-and-frisk trends there more or less matched the citywide average: just over half of those stopped throughout New York City were black, 34 percent were Hispanic, just under 10 percent were white, and about 4 percent were Asian.

The report comes roughly four months after the Red Hook Initiative released findings from a neighborhood stop-and-frisk survey its volunteers conducted last spring. of the close to 800 residents were polled, a majority reported having been stopped and frisked. Most of those stopped were non-white, the report stated but the sample group of those polled overall were 77 percent non-white as well.

RHI also launched a free stop-and-frisk app for residents to report when and where they'd been stopped by police. As of Tuesday, six reports had been uploaded to the app's website, three of them with full information regarding the stop.

Nevertheless, Alisa Pizarro, an organizer of the stop-and-frisk survey, says residents have reported fewer stop-and-frisks this winter.

"Things have kind of slowed down," she told DNAinfo.com New York. "Slowly but surely, things are changing."

To read the NYPD's report, visit the department's website.