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Council Member Restler criticizes NYPD's response to racial disparities in traffic stops
1:15:31
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169 sec
Council Member Restler expresses deep concern about the NYCLU report on racial disparities in traffic stops and criticizes the NYPD's response. He presents data showing disproportionate stops and arrests of Black and Latino drivers.
- Restler cites statistics showing 90% of people stopped and arrested for traffic violations are Black and Latino
- He references a Health Department study indicating white people are more likely to drive and engage in illegal driving behaviors
- Restler criticizes the NYPD's explanation that deployment patterns account for the disparities
- He calls for the NYPD to take an introspective look at the concerning data and make efforts to improve
Lincoln Restler
1:15:31
to dig in on that data with you because I see zero progress in Downtown Brooklyn.
1:15:35
0.
1:15:36
And I'm not saying I mean, like, I would love to celebrate you all taking this issue seriously.
1:15:40
I'd love to celebrate that there's because when we say placard abuse, most of the people who use quote unquote I'll put placards in air quotes, they're not using placards at all.
1:15:48
They're putting a vest in the dashboard.
1:15:49
Right?
1:15:50
And they still just park wherever the heck they want.
1:15:52
So I I will take you up on the the offer to come out and take a look at this issue together.
1:15:56
We would love it.
1:15:57
I I will recognize that captain Maffei in the eight four is severely understaffed, and we've received commitment from the PC's office that new recruits will be heading to the eight four and the graduating class in May to help address this and other issues, and I'm grateful to that.
1:16:11
I'm gonna just shift gears because I could talk about my concerns around traffic violence and traffic enforcement for the rest of time.
1:16:19
But I I do wanna raise this Nyklu report that I found to be enlightening and profoundly disturbing.
1:16:24
And I will say that I'm disappointed, mister Levin, by your testimony today and your response to the questions.
1:16:29
Because when 90 of people getting stopped are black and 90% of people who are getting arrested for traffic stops are black and Latino, that's a problem.
1:16:37
When five percent of people that are black are getting stopped are getting arrested, four percent of Latino people are getting stopped are arrested, but under one percent of white people are arrested, that is an extreme disparity.
1:16:47
When we've looked, you didn't like the data, you didn't like the you didn't accept the data that NYCLA used for driver demographics, but let's take a look at the health department, which I don't think you're going to dispute the the methodology of the health department.
1:17:01
They did a study in the last administration that found white people are far more likely to be driving in New York City relative to their percent of the whole of of the city's demographic as a whole.
1:17:11
Black and Latino people are less likely to be driving than the percent of the of New York City as a whole.
1:17:16
They're more likely to be speeding.
1:17:17
They're more likely to be driving and texting and and and doing illegal activities, and yet they are far less likely to be stopped by the NYPD.
1:17:26
So rather than you coming to this hearing and saying, the nightclub report is disturbing, there are trends here, your response is basically that there's more officers in the seven five and therefore more black people are getting stopped, and that explains it.
1:17:40
But that the the data doesn't back that up at all.
1:17:42
Right?
1:17:43
I mean, if you want to go through precinct by precinct of where people are getting stopped, they're overwhelmingly in black and Latino precincts, but at factors that are far larger than the differentiation in the police force in those precincts.
1:17:57
So why is the NYPD not taking an introspective look at this very concerning and troubling data that is clearly disproportionately stopping and arresting black and Latino drivers?
1:18:09
Why is there no effort to say, hey, we should make sure that we're doing this the right way and doing this better.
1:18:14
Why are you so certain that that everything is right when the data is so deeply disturbing?