WNYC Exposes New York City's Stop and Frisk Policy in News Report [AUDIO]

From WNYC.ORG 93.9 FM and 820 AM 

For City’s Teens, Stop And Frisk Is Black And White

A WNYC analysis of recently released police data reveals that one in five people stopped last year by the NYC Police Department was a teenager between the ages of 14 and 18. Of these, 86 percent were either Black or Latino, most of them boys.

Last year, there were more than 120,000 stops of Black and Latino kids between 14 and 18. The total number of Black and Latino boys that age in the entire city isn’t much more than that – about 177,000 – which strongly suggests that a teen male with dark skin in New York City will probably get stopped and frisked by the time he’s graduated from high school.

For the FULL STORY and a DETAILED, INTERACTIVE MAP of every recorded stop of a teen in 2011, visit http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2012/may/29/city-teenagers-say-stop-and-frisk-all-about-race-and-class/. It turns out the densest hot spot for stop and frisks of teenagers last year was a four-block section of Brownsville (Brooklyn), next to Teachers Preparatory, near the Marcus Garvey public housing projects.

Reporter Ailsa Chang spoke with junior high and high school students from affluent to low-income neighborhoods and captured very black-and-white experiences of being stopped by a police officer:
[LISTEN to Alisa Chang's report below:]

WNYC journalist Alisa Chang

“I think that’s discrimination, because white kids in Manhattan have no idea cops can frisk you for no reason. Like they walk past the cops and actually say, ‘Good Morning’ to them.”
— Tyari Jenkins, 14, who lives in Brownsville, Brooklyn

“It made me feel, I dunno, retarded. Like a gangbanger. Because only gangbangers get stopped for nothing, just for walking.”
— Anthony Henry, an eighth grader at P.S./I.S. 323, a school that is 99 percent Black and Latino

“We don’t look suspicious. We don’t look like scary criminals or terrorists, or whatever. We’re very unthreatening people. We’re a bunch of, to be honest, skinny white kids.”
— Benedict Bolton, 15, a freshman at Stuyvesant High School, which is 96 percent Asian and white