FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com AUGUST 15, 2013 • THE QUEENS COURIER 11 Judge rules stop-and-frisk unconstitutional BY LIAM LA GUERRE [email protected] Score another win for opponents of the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled on Monday, August 12 that the Police Department’s use of the policy is unconstitutional and suggested the appointment of a monitor to reform it. “I fi nd that the city is liable for violating plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights,” Scheindlin wrote. “The city acted with deliberate indifference toward the NYPD’s practice of making unconstitutional stops and conducting unconstitutional frisks.” The ruling comes months after the City Council approved the Community Safety Act, which contained a bill to make it easier to take the NYPD to court over discrimination cases. Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the act several ago. He strongly criticized Scheindlin’s decision. “Throughout the trial that just concluded, the judge made it clear that she was not at all interested in the crime reductions here or how we achieved them,” Bloomberg said. “Throughout the case, we didn’t believe that we were getting a fair trial, and this decision confi rms that suspicion,” he later added. Minority groups have been fi ghting the policy, saying that stop-and-frisk is unfairly used against blacks and Hispanics. Scheindlin confi rmed this view in her judgment. “In practice, the policy encourages the targeting of young black and Hispanic men based on their prevalence in local crime complaints,” Scheindlin wrote. “This is a form of racial profi ling.” Scheindlin did not rule to completely discontinue the policy, but to reform it. “The opinion does not call for the NYPD to abandon proactive “THROUGHOUT THE CASE, WE DIDN’T BELIEVE THAT WE WERE GETTING A FAIR TRIAL, AND THIS DECISION CONFIRMS THAT SUSPICION.” MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG policing and return to an era of less effective police practices,” she said. As a part of the reforms, Scheindlin wants offi cers to wear body cameras as a part of a one-year pilot program in fi ve precincts around the city, including the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica. Proponents of stop-and-frisk disagreed with Scheindlin’s ruling and called the decision to add a monitor to the program unnecessary. “The NYPD does not need an additional monitor,” said Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr., chair of the council’s public safety committee, although he agreed that the policy should be reformed. “We can agree on that and move forward to continue reform of stop-and-risk, but make sure that continues to happen so that we save young lives.” Opponents of the stop-andfrisk policy are embracing the ruling wholeheartedly. “The ruling issued by Judge Scheindlin only confi rms what so many New Yorkers already know, that the way stop, question and frisk has been implemented is a violation of people’s constitutional rights,” said Councilmember Leroy Comrie. “The public wants the police to keep them safe, and the reforms mandated by this ruling will help hold the NYPD accountable while also forcing changes to policies that will build a stronger relationship between precincts and the communities they are trying to protect.” Bloomberg said the city will appeal the decision. 30 years for trying to bomb Federal Reserve Bank BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA were to carry out a terrorist attack on [email protected] behalf of al Qaeda that would “disrupt the U.S. economy and kill Americans.” A Queens man who pleaded guilty to One of the individuals he recruited to attempting to bomb the New York Federal help him with his terrorist plot was an Reserve Bank has been sentenced to 30 undercover FBI agent. years in prison. The undercover agent supplied Nafi s Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan with non-working explosives and later Nafi s, a 22-year-old Bangladeshi national, met up with him on October 17, 2012 to fi rst came to the U.S. in January 2012 on assemble what Nafi s believed to be a real a student visa and resided in Jamaica. But bomb. They then drove to the Federal his real intentions, according to authorities, Reserve to detonate the device. When Nafi s tried to set off the fake bomb, he was arrested. In February, he pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. In court on Friday, August 9, Nafi s apologized to the United States, New York City, the judge and his parents. ”I’m ashamed. I’m lost. I tried to do a terrible thing,” CBS News quoted him as saying. “I alone am responsible for what I’ve done. Please forgive me.”
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