Report: NYPD Unit Engages in Racial Profiling

N E W   Y O R K, Oct. 5, 2000 -- A federal investigation has determined that an eliteundercover unit of the Police Department engaged in racialprofiling while conducting an aggressive campaign of streetsearches, The New York Times reported today.

The inquiry began just weeks after the 1999 shooting death ofAmadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant killed by four membersof the Police Department’s Street Crime Unit.

The U.S. attorney’s office is meeting with the mayor’s office totry to negotiate changes that would avert a lawsuit, the newspaperreported.

If talks fail, the Justice Department could go to court and aska judge to order broad changes in the operations of the unit andpossible oversight by a federal monitor.

Unit Under Scrutiny

Prosecutors based their findings on a statistical analysis ofthe people searched by the unit’s officers because they weresuspected of committing crimes or carrying guns. The analysisdetermined that blacks and Hispanics were disproportionatelysingled out, the Times reported.

The Street Crime Unit, deployed in high-crime areas, has beenseen by the NYPD as one of the chief reasons violent crime hasfallen in the city.

But the unit’s performance and conduct came under intensescrutiny after the Diallo shooting. Although the four officers wereacquitted, the NYPD has significantly reorganized the unit.

The investigation follows a 2-year federal probe intoallegations of police brutality after Abner Louima was tortured ina Brooklyn station house in 1997.

Negotiations with the mayor’s office following that probe beganover a year ago and have yet to be concluded.