MANHATTAN (CN) - The New York City Police Department's stop-and-frisk tactics that target minorities are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The ongoing practice of stopping innocent minority youth - mostly men - and frisking them for weapons or drugs before letting them go is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin found. She also said the practice violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.
Between 2004 and 2012, police made 4.4 million stops, and 80 percent of these stops were of blacks or Hispanics, Scheindlin ruled.
In addition to a 198-page finding of liability, Scheindlin issued a 39-page remedies opinion that requires police to wear cameras during stop-and-frisk procedures. Scheindlin also appointed a federal monitor to oversee reforms within the department.
Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Darius Charney called the ruling a "tremendous victory" and the beginning of sweeping reform within the police department.
"The court called a spade a spade," Charney said. "The NYPD targets people of a certain racial group for stops-and-frisks, and the court recognized that as racial profiling and properly found that that violates the Constitution."
Plaintiffs in the case also hailed the decision during a press conference Monday.
"When I got the call this morning, the first thing I did was cry," a visibly emotional David Ourlicht, one of the case's plaintiffs, said. "It's a big thing for New York, but for America as a whole, it shows the polarization of people of color in this country and how we're viewed. I think it needs to be recognized."
Fellow plaintiff Lalit Clarkson said he joined the lawsuit to end what he called the "lowest level of police abuse."
"If we can take care of this then the higher forms [of abuse] will slowly fade away," he said. "I could've been like Trayvon Martin."
A defiant Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted the ruling during a news conference Monday, calling Scheindlin's ruling "a very dangerous decision by a judge who doesn't understand how policing works." He also vowed to appeal.
"We believe we have done exactly what the courts allow and the Constitution allows us to do and we will continue to do everything we can to keep this city safe," Bloomberg said.
The mayor credited the policy with reducing the amount of guns and other weapons on the streets, driving down city's murder rate and bringing about the lowest-ever percentage of teenagers carrying guns on the streets.
"We are the poster child that everybody wants to follow," Bloomberg said, adding that Scheindlin failed to mention the "stark cuts in crime or the number of lives" lost and "ignored the real world realities of crime."
He also challenged the notion that the NYPD targets minorities. "We go to where the crimes are," Bloomberg said. "Those happen to be poor neighborhoods and minority neighborhoods."
The mayor also emphasized that 97 percent of all shooting victims last year were black or Hispanic living in low-income neighborhoods.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly also attacked the ruling during the news conference. "The most disturbing and offensive thing is the notion that the New York Police Department engages in racial profiling," Kelly said. "That simply is recklessly untrue. We do not engage in racial profiling.