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An Officer’s Secretly Recorded Words About ‘Stop and Frisk’ Cause a Firestorm

Who, exactly, are “the right people” for the New York Police Department to stop, question and frisk

Is that frequently used expression actually a racist code for young black and Hispanic men Or is it simply police shorthand for people whose suspicious activities make them a legitimate target of police attention as they try to reduce the city’s crime rate

That’s one of the questions at the heart of a federal trial that began last week in New York. In recent months, The Times has covered the stop-and-frisk program aggressively, questioning in many articles whether it is enmeshed with the reprehensible practice of racial profiling. And now it is covering the trial.

But one article - a Page 1 story last Friday by Joseph Goldstein - has caused a firestorm of criticism. It has drawn sharp and sustained protests from the Police Department and its legal department, and tough words from sources as diverse as the frequent police critic Leonard Levitt, a former Newsday columnist who writes the NYPD Confidential blog, and Heather Mac Donald, who frequently takes the Police Department’s point of view, writing in City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute.

Her assessment: The Times’s article “has twisted the taped conversation into a poisonous indictment of the police.”

Essentially, Mr. Goldstein’s article reported that, in at least one police precinct, race is a factor in the directions that street cops get from their supervisors on whom to stop, question and frisk.

Over the past week, I’ve considered the complaints of the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, and from the N.Y.P.D.’s legal department. I’ve read various articles criticizing the article, heard from readers commenting on it, and talked with the reporter, Mr. Goldstein, and the Metropolitan editor, Carolyn Ryan. I’ve also heard the audio of the secretly recorded conversation between Officer Pedro Serrano and his commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, and I’ve read the transcript.

The essence of the complaint against The Times’s story is that, according to Mr. Browne, “The article provided a distorted picture of what the interchange between the inspector and a disgruntled, race-baiting cop was all about.” Officer Serrano had been criticized for making only two stops in a year, while working in the high-crime 40th Precinct in the South Bronx.

Ms. Ryan provided this response to the criticism in an e-mail (I later talked in person with her and Mr. Goldstein):

To us the story captures the essence of the argument between civil libertarians and the N.Y.P.D.: Are the police using the stop-question-frisk tactic as a blunt instrument to target certain groups of people, or are they acting, as the Supreme Court requires, on reasonable and individualized suspicion The N.Y.P.D. has repeatedly said publicly that it uses the tactic only when an officer reasonably suspects a person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.

But the reality of how that policy is communicated to officers in the station house appears quite different, as the story demonstrates. And in this case, it seems, the commanding officer of a precinct is suggesting an entire demographic be placed under suspicion.

The full transcript of the roughly 20-minute conversation shows Officer Serrano, who has been faulted for making too few stops, demanding guidance about whom to stop. He is told by his commanding officer, Inspector McCormack, to stop “the right people at the right time, the right location.” This is an oft-used N.Y.P.D. description of how the strategy is employed: they frequently talk about “the right people” or “the right stops.” It is obviously very vague.

At the end of the conversation, Inspector McCormack suggested that, in Mott Haven, given crime patterns there, the officer should stop “male blacks 14 to 20, 21.” This is not a specific description of suspects, such as “black male, 14 to 20, wearing red hoodie and blue sneakers,” or “black male, known to hang out in xyz location or associate with xyz people.” It is an entire demographic.

And Inspector McCormack does not appear, on the tape, to be talking about one specific crime for which particular young black males are wanted. He is describing the precinct’s two biggest categories of felony crime, grand larcenies and robberies, of which there are close to 1,000 a year. And, most significantly, in his course of this lengthy conversation with Officer Serrano, he defines “the right people” in terms of the broad demographic, rather than by their suspicious conduct - like peering into apartment windows or evading police â€" which is the only lawful basis for a stop, according to the Supreme Court. To critics of the N.Y.P.D., this is akin to racial profiling. And to us it suggests that the way the department’s strategy is communicated to officers is quite different from what N.Y.P.D. brass have described publicly.

She’s right on many counts and says it well. I disagree, however, that the inspector said the officer “should stop” male blacks, but rather that male blacks were given as an example of those associated with past crimes.

What’s more, the article is not presented as one about “how strategy is communicated.” It’s presented as something close to proof of racial profiling..

Mr. Levitt, for one, does not think it comes close. He wrote on his blog: “If federal judge Shira Scheindlin concludes that the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk is a racist policy she’ll need more proof than last week’s testimony of the 40th precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack.”

In a phone interview, Mr. Levitt - who rarely pulls his punches against the Police Department â€" noted that a front-page article in The Times carries enormous weight, and, he said, “to me, there is a much more nuanced picture” than the one portrayed there.

“The way The Times handled it just seemed unfair to McCormack,” he said, given that “so much of the violent crime in the city is committed by young, black males. You can yell and scream about the impropriety of what he said, but it’s true. And the victims are very often black, too.”

Mr. Levitt also noted that Inspector McCormack emphasizes - on the recording â€" that “99 percent of the people in this community are great, hardworking people, who deserve to walk to the train, walk to their car, walk to the store,” without becoming crime victims.” But that context is dismissed, far down in the article, as something that the inspector is “lecturing” his subordinate about.

Mr. Browne, the police spokesman, is correct when he says that the description of “young black males” was tied to specific crimes that had already occurred - the robberies and larcenies in the Mott Haven neighborhood. Note the use of the past tense in Inspector McCormack’s exact words: “The problem was what, male blacks … And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, male blacks 14 to 20, 21.”

On the other side, Ms. Ryan is totally correct when she says that “what’s left unsaid” is crucially important; the inspector never speaks about reasonable suspicion as a basis for possible stops.

I’ll offer some final thoughts, but first want to state the obvious:

Racial profiling is not only reprehensible and illegal; it’s also immoral. No individual should be prejudged as suspicious based on his or her age or the color of his skin. I can’t be the judge of whether that’s occurring in the context of “stop and frisk” â€" a federal trial will try to come to terms with that overarching question over the next month or more.

The Times’s article strikes me as essentially accurate. But with its emphasis on one sentence - without enough context - and its presentation on the front page, it comes off as clear proof of racial profiling in the New York Police Department. (And there’s no doubt that it was interpreted just that way by a wide variety of readers. The Rev. Al Sharpton quickly demanded Inspector McCormack’s suspension, and a Times editorial the next day was headlined “Walking While Black in New York.”)

The facts, though certainly newsworthy, don’t rise to that “smoking gun” level.

From Today’s Paper: Water Line Break and Flood Homes in Hoboken

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Workers at Willow Avenue and 8th Street in Hoboken, N.J., the site of one of two water line breaks just a few blocks apart. The other was at Willow and 14th. Many in the city lost water pressure, and an advisory was issued warning residents to boil water.

From Today’s Paper: Water Line Break and Flood Homes in Hoboken

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Workers at Willow Avenue and 8th Street in Hoboken, N.J., the site of one of two water line breaks just a few blocks apart. The other was at Willow and 14th. Many in the city lost water pressure, and an advisory was issued warning residents to boil water.