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Q&A
Confronting racial bias in NYPD vehicle searches
0:54:28
·
73 sec
Council Member Cabán challenges NYPD representative Josh Levin on the apparent racial bias in vehicle searches, pointing out the disproportionate rates at which Black and Latino drivers are searched compared to white drivers.
- Cabán questions why Black and Latino drivers are treated differently in vehicle searches
- Levin attributes disparities to individual circumstances and crime trends
- Cabán presses on whether Black drivers are exhibiting more reasons for legal searches
- The discussion highlights the significantly higher search rates for Black and Latino drivers compared to white drivers
Tiffany Cabán
0:54:28
And I'm asking specifically about searches.
0:54:31
Why are black and Latine drivers treated differently when it comes to a vehicle search?
Josh Levin
0:54:36
I think it goes back to the individual.
0:54:38
It all depends on what that actual specific officer is seeing in those specific circumstances and the specific crime trends crime trends that they're responding to.
Tiffany Cabán
0:54:45
So are are you saying that black drivers much more often than white drivers after being stopped are are exhibiting the necessary information, evidence to allow for a legal search of the vehicle?
Josh Levin
0:55:06
I think there are so many factors that go into whether a search is done.
0:55:10
I'm not comfortable saying writ large or something like that.
0:55:13
What I am saying is that officers have to find a particularized suspicion in order to search a vehicle or even ask for consent to search a vehicle.
Tiffany Cabán
0:55:21
And do you think that black folks are committing crimes at higher rates than white folks?
Josh Levin
0:55:25
Of course not.
0:55:27
But what we are seeing
Tiffany Cabán
0:55:28
is specific So then why are black drivers searched at a rate roughly 10 times greater than the rate that that white drivers are?
0:55:34
And that and Latina drivers are being searched at a rate roughly six times greater.
0:55:39
Why is there a disparity?
Josh Levin
0:55:40
I think it goes back to what I said before, but I think another important thing to keep in mind is that plus 50%, fifty six to 61% of these searches are consent searches.