NYC Council to Consider Limits on NYPD's Stop and Frisk Rules

The controversial "stop-and-frisk" practice used by New York City cops could be changed-if not stopped-soon, if the City Council decides so.

Beginning Wednesday, the City Council began the first of what are to be several hearings putting under review four bills known as the Community Safety Act, designed to reform stop-and-frisk tactics utilized by the police in the Big Apple to search suspicious persons.

At the council's first meeting on the matter Wednesday, supporters from both sides made conviction-filled arguments on the hotly-debated policy, the Wall Street Journal reported.

These proposed bills are preempted by state law and would be invalid if enacted," said mayoral counselor Michael Best on the legislation.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a supporter of the current stop-and-frisk policy employed by city cops, has promised to veto the bills if passed.

City Council Member Jumaane Williams, who backed the legislation, expressed frustration that Best did not acknowledge that police stop-and-frisk tactics needed to be fixed, the Journal reported.

"Is there a problem with the NYPD and particular communities that needs to be corrected?" he asked Mr. Best.

"In general," the mayoral adviser replied, "the police department is doing its job very well."

During one moment in the hearing, Best, an African-American, recalled a conversation with his mother on how to handle police encounters.

"These are conversations that I would guess-I may be wrong -that your mom has not had with you," Williams said to Best, who is white. "And the primary reason is the color of our skin."

Just one day before the hearings, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday of a secretly recorded video shot via cell phone by a Harlem teen last year who was stopped and frisked by police at the time, giving a graphic insight towards stop-and-frisks situations.

The video, which can be seen here on the Youtube page of internet show The Young Turks Nation, showed an incident in June 2011 when the teen-who was identified only as "Alvin" was stopped by three plainclothes cops while coming home from his girlfriend's house.

"Do you want to go to jail?" one of the officers asked Alvin.

"For what?" Alvin responded.

"For being a f---- mutt! You know that," the cop replied.

When Alvin asked, "That's a law, being a mutt?," the same officer threatened him with jail time, and at one point, threatened to "break your f---- arm off right now."

Under stop and frisk rules, a police officer may perform a limited search of a person they deem suspicious, involving patting down the individual for weapons while the cop questions them. While a stop is not an arrest, the stop can be made into an arrest if more evidence against the person is uncovered during the search.

An analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union reported that more than 4 million such stops have been made by police on New Yorkers since 2002, "and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics."