A group of people are hanging out on the sidewalk. Nearby, a cop’s police radio crackles with an APB for two males involved in a robbery …
WNYC’S ALISA CHANG TALKS ABOUT STOP & FRISK ON HW RADIO POD SHOW >>>
… one white male wearing a red shirt and one black male wearing a black shirt and shorts. Coincidentally, two people in the group fit that description. Officers approach and ask the two men to step to the side.
No, this isn’t “Police Academy.” It is in fact part of the NYPD’s training – or retraining – of the controversial stop-and-frisk procedure. The reenactment event included a passerby with a cameraphone vowing the plaster the incident YouTube.
The scenario in this bad B-movie is fake, but the cops are real, and the “people” are actually cops ad-libbing.
The NYPD brought the media down to see the new and improved stop-and-frisk training taking place at its facility in the Bronx on Wednesday. So far, more than 1,200 officers have received the hands-on training and there are about 300 more to be trained.
The department has focused on training after growing criticism of the NYPD’s use of the tactic. Hundreds of thousands of people in the city are stopped and frisked each year – the majority are black and Hispanic men (a African American Harlem World Magazine intern was stopped-and-frisked by the NYPD 42 times last month in Harlem).
The scenario in the video was one of three on display for the media that was supposed to mimic a real stop-and-frisk incident.
With the Associated Press
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