Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Council Member Cabán presses NYPD to acknowledge racial disparities as a problem
1:30:47
·
75 sec
In the final exchange, Council Member Cabán pressures NYPD's Josh Levin to acknowledge racial disparities in traffic stops as a problem. Levin maintains he cannot comment without knowing all individual factors, leading to Cabán's frustration and a pointed analogy.
- Levin states he can't comment on the disparities without knowing all individual factors
- Cabán presents a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the absurdity of not acknowledging an obvious problem
- She emphasizes the severity of the issue, noting that Black and brown people are being 'beat up, searched, arrested' at 10 times the rate of white people
- The exchange ends with Cabán expressing disappointment in NYPD's inability to acknowledge the problem
Josh Levin
1:30:47
So council member, what I'm saying is that any comment that explains a massive type of analysis in a quick forty five second explanation is not only inaccurate, I would have no faith in it, but also it's a disservice to you.
Tiffany Cabán
1:31:03
Do you think that it's a problem?
1:31:06
Do you think the disparity is a problem?
Josh Levin
1:31:08
I can't comment because I don't know the individual factors that are going into account in all of these individual stops.
1:31:14
But as you yourself have said, you have seen body worn camera.
1:31:18
Okay.
1:31:18
You understand what some of these
Tiffany Cabán
1:31:20
things look Let me ask you this hypothetical.
1:31:21
Let's say you're walking down you're you're walking into a public park, and you see trash piled 20 feet high.
1:31:33
And and I asked you, hey.
1:31:35
Do you think that trash is a problem?
1:31:37
And you go, I don't know because I can't tell you about all the circumstances about how single little piece of trash ended up getting piled there and then got piled and piled and piled, so I can't answer that.
1:31:47
That's what saying right now when I tell you that black and brown people are being beat up, searched, arrested, 10 times more than white people, and you're sitting here and telling me you can't even acknowledge that that's a problem.
1:32:01
I'm done.
1:32:02
Thank you, chair.