NYPD Racial Profiling

Anyone familiar with me knows I often mention the blatant violation of the constitutional rights of black people by the NYPD under their stop and frisk program. Alternet has a good article discussing the practice. One thing that jumped out at me:

The organization’s officials report that on visits to the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Bronx pens, they usually see hundreds of detainees who were arrested the day or night before and there will only be one or two white faces in the midst of cell after cell of black and brown people. Out of 250 people arrested in Manhattan say on a Wednesday, conditions monitors will note that on the following Thursday they will see 248 or 250 people of color confined in those cells. Such a racial disparity -- not merely disproportionate but virtually exclusive -- is not an accident. It is a function of the policies and practices of the New York City Police Department.

Not an accident at all.