Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Debate over racial disparities in traffic enforcement and NYPD's response
1:18:22
·
3 min
Josh Levin from the NYPD and Council Member Restler engage in a heated debate about the racial disparities in traffic stops and arrests. Levin defends the NYPD's practices, while Restler pushes for acknowledgment of the problem and action to address it.
- Levin cites NYPD training and accountability measures to address potential bias
- Restler challenges Levin's arguments, presenting additional data to support his concerns
- The debate touches on officer deployment, stop rates in different precincts, and the interpretation of various data points
- Levin expresses skepticism about the comprehensiveness of the NYCLU report
Josh Levin
1:18:22
So I I just don't think it's fair to say we don't we're not doing anything or have any concerns.
1:18:30
That our only concern is just like, we have robust procedures in place.
1:18:35
Right?
1:18:35
Not only do we have the trainings, not only implicit bias training, etcetera.
1:18:39
Not only do we deploy specifically to where we see the crime happening, but as I explained earlier, there's mechanisms by which officers can be held accountable if this true.
1:18:49
I just think we have a difference of opinion on it.
1:18:51
And let me let me just say one other thing.
1:18:53
Let me just say one other thing.
1:18:54
I'm not willing this I'm not trying to indict Nightclue.
1:19:00
I had one specific concern with that
Lincoln Restler
1:19:01
I know.
1:19:02
I did.
1:19:02
And I gave you a different data point to show that that's a ridiculous argument.
1:19:05
I I mean, it's a ridiculous argument.
1:19:07
You wanna look the the health department found that 54% of white people in New York City were likely to have driven in the last thirty days, forty percent of black people, and 32% of Latino people.
1:19:17
Black and Latino people are much less likely to be in cars.
1:19:19
They in aggregate represent 49% of the population, but are far less likely to be drivers on the road than that percent, yet are 62% of the stops and 90% of the people arrested.
1:19:29
The the data is deeply, deeply disturbing.
Josh Levin
1:19:32
Can I comment on that?
1:19:33
Please.
1:19:33
I guess this is what I would say and be more than happy to have ongoing conversations, your place, my place, wherever you wanna do it.
1:19:39
Okay?
1:19:39
But for the sake of this, there's just if white people in the DOH study are committing more traffic by right?
1:19:48
Just quoting them.
1:19:49
If you have less if you have less police officers there, it's not going to be interdicted the same way when you have more police officers in different areas.
Lincoln Restler
1:19:57
But come on.
Josh Levin
1:19:58
I don't think that's a cop out.
1:19:59
Right?
1:20:00
Think that's
Lincoln Restler
1:20:00
But let's go through this then.
1:20:01
You're saying East New York, you gave an example where there were 55,000 people stopped last year.
1:20:06
In the nine four, which is a smaller precinct, it's not it's not all apples to oranges, not every precinct has the same number of people, there were 13,000 people stopped last year.
1:20:13
The nine four is Greenpoint in Williamsburg.
1:20:15
I represent 88% of it, I mean, Are you trying to tell me that there are five times, four and a half times as many officers in the seven five as in the nine four?
Josh Levin
1:20:26
I I actually don't know what the
Lincoln Restler
1:20:27
exact My point is is that's ridiculous.
1:20:29
There aren't five times as many officers in the seven five as the nine four.
1:20:32
And and the argument that every officer just means the same amount of stops doesn't make sense.
1:20:36
What we're seeing is racially disparate enforcement and racially disparate arrests.
1:20:43
And I don't see why the department wouldn't come to this hearing in good faith and say there are just there are trends in this Nyklu data that are concerning and that require us to re to shift our enforcement approaches.
1:20:54
It shouldn't be that we have to go to court and sue the police department to to recognize illegal disparities and racial disparities in enforcement like has happened on Stop and Frisk.
1:21:04
It shouldn't be that.
1:21:05
It should be we should be working collaboratively together to say, hey.
1:21:09
There are troubling signs here.
1:21:10
We shouldn't be enforcing these issues only in black and Latino communities.
1:21:14
That doesn't that's not right.
1:21:15
That's not fair.
1:21:16
That's not the way the police department is supposed to work.
1:21:18
But that's what the data shows.
1:21:20
And I don't hear any recognition of a deeply, deeply troubling set report that came out last week.
Josh Levin
1:21:26
So I I hear what you were saying.
1:21:29
All I'm gonna say in response to that is, I feel like there are so many different data points and so many factors that need to be taken into consideration.
1:21:36
I'm just not sure the six page night clue report, which cites to the bureau, Census Bureau information about surveys of drivers, is enough for us to have a substantive conversation about
Tiffany Cabán
1:21:45
it.
Lincoln Restler
1:21:45
But take the surveys of drivers aside.