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| Stopped, Frisked and Angry |
| By thecrimereport.org - Perry Chiaramonte |
| Published: 05/21/2012 |
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Baltimore native Chris Bilal was returning home from the laundromat in his adopted Brooklyn neighborhood when he was stopped by a police officer. The NYPD officer peppered the 24-year-old with questions about where he lived, requested Bilal’s ID, and rummaged through his bag. “(He asked me) ‘Let me see your ID. Where are you from? Do you live around here?’” Bilal recalled. The search of Bilal’s bag of freshly cleaned and folded laundry was just as methodical. The search produced nothing, and the officer sent Bilal on his way. “They were searching for drugs,” said Bilal. “The funny thing was that it was a mesh laundry bag. I’m not sure what I could hide.” The not-so-funny thing: it wasn’t the first time. Bilal, an African American who moved to New York a year ago to pursue a career as an artist, says he is repeatedly stopped, questioned—and on occasion, frisked---by New York City police. “I feel guilty all the time,” he said. “I feel like I’m being watched and targeted all the time.” Bilal is just one of the faces hidden behind the statistics of the New York Police Department (NYPD) controversial Stop, Question and Frisk policy, in which officers can make random stops if they have reason to suspect an individual possesses weapons, drugs or contraband---or may have been guilty of a crime. In 2011, the NYPD stopped 685,724 people---of whom an overwhelming 88 percent were deemed innocent. Read More. |
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