NYPD Will Stop, Frisk, Then Explain...But Kelly Won't Talk To City Council About It

The NYPD, as regressive as they are with the heavily used "stop and frisk" policy, made a slightly beneficial change in procedure as to how they deal with the minorities they love to search. Instead of just stopping people and frisking them for weapons, at the end of the intrusion they'll hand each person a card stating why they were searched. It's a step forward, but that doesn't mean City Councilmembers reviewing NYPD practices are happy.

From The NY Times:

While Mr. Kelly was discussing the new policy, at a news conference devoted mainly to the introduction of hybrid patrol cars, the department was skipping a City Council Public Safety Committee hearing about the “stop and frisk” practice. Instead of attending himself, Mr. Kelly sent an assistant commissioner to read his letter but to take no questions.

“The speaker and I are very disappointed, first of all, that the Police Department did not answer questions and secondly that they only advised us eight days ago that they would not be testifying when they had well over three weeks’ notice that we were preparing for this hearing,” said Peter F. Vallone Jr., the committee chairman.

Mr. Vallone hailed the new procedure, but objected to the way those plans were made public.

“It seems that some of their best policy improvements, like this one, come on the eve of a public safety hearing, which then slants coverage of the hearing toward their new policy,” Mr. Vallone said. “If that works to improve the Police Department, I am O.K. with it, but I would rather it not happen that way.”

Vallone of course, is the NYPD's biggest cheerleader, so to at least hear him disapproving of Kelly's actions is considerable. The reason he didn't attend, according to the Times is the impending lawsuit against the Police Department for their use of the "stop and frisk." So it seems like the NYPD's addition of "explain" to their stopping and frisking is a way to please the Court so that they do not strike the practice altogether.