It looks like San Francisco may follow the lead of New York City and implement a stop and frisk policy. And they’re justifying it the same way, as a necessary means of getting guns off the streets.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said he is considering implementing the controversial stop-and-frisk policy used in other major cities including New York and Philadelphia to reduce violent crime.
Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board Wednesday that police officers need stop-and-frisk to get guns off the streets.
“This is under consideration as a way to make sure that we keep homicides and some of these other violent crime(s) down,” Lee said. “I think we have to get to the guns. I know we have to find a different way to get to these weapons, and I’m very willing to consider what other cities are doing.”
But in NYC, only a tiny percentage of stop and frisks have found guns. And it’s becoming more and more clear that the vaunted decrease in serious crimes in NYC are at least partly the result of manipulating the data, telling officers to downgrade serious crimes to lesser ones and to not take reports from many victims while focusing on misdemeanor arrests. Bad idea all the way around.
9 comments
1 ping
Skip to comment form ↓
ahcuah
July 5, 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What I don’t understand is why there haven’t been a slew of 42 USC 1983 lawsuits over these stop-and-frisk activities. It ought to be easy for an advocacy group to set up situations, even tape them, showing that the searches completely violate Terry v. Ohio and the other court rulings on such things.
All too often these laws are only challenged when someone (often of dubious character) is arrested, and the result is to throw out evidence. What we need instead are proactive lawsuits. Bankrupt the city over this practice.
jayarrrr
July 5, 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Nobody wants to fight it because it’s about “guns on the street” and mercy, who in their right mind would be against getting guns off the streets?
Wonder how long before Rahm enacts this in Chicago?
Dr X
July 5, 2012 at 9:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Anyone who spent significant time in NYC pre-Giuliani and post Giuliani experienced the palpable, dramatic transformation of the of the city, from Manhattan and into the boroughs. It is not even remotely close to a tough call. The numbers are somewhat suppressed because of downgrading, but there is no way in hell that the real crime rate hasn’t fallen dramatically. You can only believe that because you didn’t know New York, first hand, before and after. People can walk around Harlem now. When I was growing up you’d have to be out of your fucking mind to walk around in Harlem. People got mugged in Times Square all the time. Significant parts of lower Manhattan were places to go if you had a death wish. The boroughs were a nightmare. Subway riders were menaced regularly by knife wielding muggers. There were people who were mugged four, five, six times in as many years. People literally had dead bolt stacked on top of dead bolt on their doors because burglaries were so commonplace.
Here’s something else that you’re not reporting because you don’t know about it. In the 60s and the 70s, the reported crime rate was severely suppressed because New Yorkers didn’t even bother to report crimes much of the time. It wasn’t worth the effort. People got mugged all the time and didn’t bother to call the cops. People were burglarized all the time and didn’t call the cops unless they had insurance. It wasn’t worth sitting in your apartment for maybe 48 hours straight waiting for the cops who might or might not show up and act annoyed with you for bothering them. Going to a police station to report a crime wasn’t worth the effort in most cases. People would sit around waiting for hours for a bored, annoyed cop to take their report and stick it in a file cabinet. The police were swamped by crime and had almost given up. Emergency services were harassed every time they went into a bad neighborhood. Firefighters show up to put out fire and kids would throw rocks at them. The cops talked people out of reporting crimes all the time. If you drove the Cross Bronx Expressway in the 70s, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were driving through a city that had seen a nuclear holocaust.
So cops are being told to downgrade now. You’re comparing this to a time when the numbers were much higher while the cops didn’t even take reports, not because they were told they shouldn’t take reports, but because people didn’t even bother to report crime or because the cops talked them out of reporting. The idea that the real crime rate in NYC hasn’t fallen dramatically is utterly ludicrous.
Modusoperandi
July 5, 2012 at 10:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dr X, we know how it was. We’ve seen Barney Miller. The worst thing that happened back then was when the two gay guys got in a fight and then Yemana accidentally got stoned.
Hank Fox
July 5, 2012 at 10:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When I visited NYC from California for the first time back in the late 1980s for a publishing convention, my main impression was of the smell of piss. EVERY stairway, doorway, alley, etc. smelled of human piss, and it wasn’t subtle either.
I now live a few hours away from NYC and drive into it every day as part of my job. Not a hint of that smell. But also, you can walk around at night, parking and strolling to restaurants, etc., without the feeling you’re going to get mugged or killed.
I’m not up on the reasons; I’m only saying I can tell it’s waaaay different.
Pierce R. Butler
July 5, 2012 at 11:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
jayarrrr @ # 2: … who in their right mind would be against getting guns off the streets?
Though I realize this contradicts your modifying clause, your question does make me wonder why the NRA hasn’t set up such a sting yet.
kyoseki
July 5, 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My guess is that, like California’s major cities, it’s pretty much impossible to get a concealed carry permit in New York city without sleeping with the local Sheriff, so it’s very difficult to carry firearms legally in order to conduct such a sting.
Jafafa Hots
July 6, 2012 at 8:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well if it happens to me I guess I’ll end up in jail because I will never consent. And there will never be any reasonable suspicion.
I’d never own a gun, and I’ll readily admit that in my adamant defense of my constitutional right to not consent to a search I’m not pausing for a moment to THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Jafafa Hots
July 6, 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Incidentally, y’know what causes stairwells to smell of piss?
People pissing in them. Because they have nowhere else to piss. Usually because they’re homeless.
If that’s gone then does that mean suitable homes have been found for everyone? If so, why attribute that to crime prevention programs?
If it’s NOT about suitable homes, if it IS a result of crime prevention, what does that mean for the homeless people?
Were they arrested? Were they shuffled off somewhere out of sight, no longer tolerated in parts of the city that others are?
Is it because, in the recent words of Berkeley CA Mayor Tom Bates, that the homeless aren’t “normal citizens?”
Yes, Berkeley.
As long as we’re pondering things urine and non urine-related, lets ponder those.
Lets ponder whether or not random friskings on the street and segregating the homeless is worth what you’re getting in return. And if the precedent set might come back to bite you on your own ass some day.
Stop and Frisk: Next Stop, San Francisco « Foster Disbelief
July 6, 2012 at 9:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] in San Francisco, you may be about to get very familiar with “stop and frisk.” From Ed over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars: It looks like San Francisco may follow the lead of New York City and implement a stop and frisk [...]