By Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The State Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that will do away with the NYPD's stop-and-frisk database if Gov. David Paterson signs it into law.
The bill, which passed the State Senate last week, would stop police officers from adding the names and addresses of every person they stop, question and frisk to an electronic database used in criminal investigations.
Nearly 90 percent of the people in that database are innocent of any crime, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“It’s time to address the NYPD’s racially-biased and counterproductive stop-and-frisk practices,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, in a statement.
“The Legislature has stood up for the privacy and due process rights of all New Yorkers. With a pen stroke, Governor Paterson can now end this injustice once and for all.”
The bill still allows police to keep electronic databases of generic information about stop-and-frisk encounters, such as the gender and race of individuals stopped, and the location of the stops. The NYCLU said this data is necessary to independently analyze the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk activity and identify whether officers are engaging in racial profiling.
The NYPD responded to the passage of the bill with a statement reading, "Absent the restrictions proposed in this legislation, the NYPD has been able to solve serious crimes, including a recent rash of anti-gay and anti-Mexican bias attacks and robberies."
But for the NYCLU, the bill doesn't go far enough. They filed a class-action lawsuit in May challenging the stop-and-frisk practice all together.
“Our lawsuit and this bill share a common purpose: preventing innocent people from being treated like criminal suspects because they were walking while black or brown,” Lieberman said.
“It shouldn’t take legislation and litigation to address this injustice.”
