Yesterday we told you the federal civil rights trial of stop-and-frisk was drawing to a close, and that Judge Shira Scheindlin gave an interview saying that she wouldn’t go soft on the city government just because it’s the city government. Today, we’re pleased to say that the judge was true to her word. During yesterday’s closing remarks, Scheindlin made statements that “were far more critical and blunt than those she had previously made during the trial,” according to the New York Times.
” A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” Scheindlin said at one point. “So the point is: the suspicion turns out to be wrong in most of the cases.”
Blasting the “high error rate” of the NYPD practice, the judge told a city lawyer, “You reasonably suspect something and you’re wrong 90 percent of the time.”
Scheindlin is hearing the case without a jury, and will decide the case within the year.
