The (Mostly) Silent March Against Stop-and-frisk in New York

In New York on June 17th, tens of thousands marked Father’s Day by taking part in a silent march against racial profiling. A primary target of the protest was the New York Police Department’s controversial practice of stop and frisk.

The stop and frisk policy allows police to stop anyone they deem suspicious… and supporters — including New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg — say it is an effective crime-fighting strategy.

But critics charge racial profiling: according to the police department’s own records made public through lawsuits, the vast majority of the nearly 700,000 people stopped last year were black and latino, and over 90 percent are innocent.

This article was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.