With the advent of all the recent police shootings, the concept of ‘stop and frisk’ is under as much scrutiny as ever. One of the seminal cases in this regard, remains the Federal District of New York decision known as Floyd v. City of New York, in which the Court considered the stop and frisk tactics employed by the New York Police Department (“NYPD”). 813 F.Supp.2d 457 (S.D.N.Y. 2011). The Court found that NYPD officers had historically been stopping people in the absence of objective reasons that would give rise to a suspicion of wrong doing. Id. Citing an NYPD “policy of indirect racial profiling” with respect to making stops in minority communities, the Court mandated that reforms take place under the auspices of a monitor. Id.

The NYPD stop and frisk policy, as articulated in Floyd, was found to be violative of the Constitutional protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment which bars unreasonable search and seizure. Moreover, the Court also found that the predominance of discriminatory stops also violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause’s which constitutionally bars discriminatory acts of this nature. This decision ultimately validated the widespread perception that minorities are disproportionately subject to stop and frisk versus non-minority individuals. The pattern of stops and frisks was found to be arbitrary and unsupported by reasonable suspicion.

Naturally, the City fought this ruling tooth and nail, immediately blasting the Court and demanding that it be heard by a Federal Appeals panel, which it was in due time. While the ruling was temporarily derailed by an interim appeals panel, the one that ultimately decided the case was more inclined to find that the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy was discriminatory in nature, and would likely favor the Federal District Court’s ruling, finding that the NYPD: 1) regularly stopped people without first reasonably suspecting that criminal actions were taking place; 2) proceeded to frisk stopped individuals without having reasonably suspected that they were armed and/or dangerous; 3) made such stops and frisks on the basis of skin color or ethnicity, and not upon any other articulable reasons, though under a new administration, the City of New York ultimately dropped the appeal and instead proceed with the remedial work as ordered by the District Court.

In the aftermath of the Floyd decision and the ensuing appeal, a former prosecutor was appointed to oversee the process, which included issuance of detailed instructions on how and when to conduct stops, and what did or did not constitute the requisite reasonable suspicion (Editorial Board, NYT, 2016). There were forms to fill out detailing the rationale and facts behind each stop and then frisk if that were involved as well. Not only did patrol officers play a role in this new documentation process, but also their superiors who had to review these forms for compliance with constitutionally mandated.

Disciplinary standards were required to be constructed with respect to those officers who conducted stop and frisks in a manner that violated the Constitution. An even more controversial requirement at the time was the implementation of body cameras on police in certain precincts. These cameras would then provide feedback as to whether civilians or officers behaved differently during encounters in the field when they know they are being filmed in the process. Fast forward to today, where we have since come to know and respect the Constitutional requirements with respect to stops and frisks. Body and dash cameras are norm today and no longer meet resistance, having been accepted as something that protects both the government and its citizens alike. What seemed to prohibitive and taxing back at the time of the mandates coming out of the Floyd ruling, are relatively minor compared to the scrutiny and detail that today’s police force have to undergo on a daily basis.