Illegal N.Y.P.D. Stop-and-Frisk Tactics Went Unchecked, Monitor Says

Police Department anti-crime units are stopping, frisking and searching too many New Yorkers unlawfully — and at levels far outstripping those of regular patrol units, a court-appointed monitor said.

The monitor, Mylan L. Denerstein, filed a report in federal court in Manhattan on Monday that found that the units, the Neighborhood Safety Teams and Public Safety Teams, made unlawful stops at least a quarter of the time in 2023. And despite the volume of unlawful stops, the report found, command-level supervisors habitually failed to identify or address them.

“The N.Y.P.D. must focus on supervisors ensuring implementation of constitutionally compliant stops, frisks and searches,” Ms. Denerstein, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, wrote in the report’s executive summary. “The ball is in the Department’s hands, and the N.Y.P.D. can do this. The law requires no less.”

Ms. Denerstein’s report is the 23rd such assessment since 2013, when a federal court ruled that the department’s use of stop and frisk was unconstitutional and appointed an independent monitor to oversee its use of the tactic.

It comes at something of an inflection point for the Police Department. The agency has had four commissioners in less than three years and has in recent months weathered scandals, including accusations of misconduct among top officials, that have shaken the 180-year-old institution and its roughly 50,000 officers and employees.

The report’s findings are part of a decadelong struggle to curb unlawful stops and searches and carry out court-ordered reforms, a goal that continues to elude the department. A report in September ordered by a federal judge found that police leaders had failed to punish officers who had abused stop-and-frisk tactics.