This Account Is Tweeting Every NYPD Stop-and-Frisk [View all]

[The Straight Story]

Millions of New Yorkers have been subject to a New York Police Department stop-and-frisk — and one Twitter account is telling their story, 140 characters at a time.

The account, @StopAndFrisk, was created last month by New York-based developer Simon Lawrence and journalist Michele Lent Hirsch to put a social spotlight on the controversial NYPD practice. Stop-and-frisk allows police to stop somebody they believe has committed, is in the process of committing, or is about to commit a crime. Police can search the stopped person if they have grounds to believe they are in danger, sometimes leading to arrests on drug charges when illegal substances are found on stopped persons.

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Each tweet features the subject's age, location and police reason for making the stop, per records made available by the New York Civil Liberties Union. It does not include the subject's race, as the creators feel the racial bias of stop-and-frisk (55% of those stopped last year were black, 30% latino) has been well-covered by other media. It uses a photograph of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a fierce defender of stop-and-frisk, as its profile image.

"The thought was, lets look at individuals, their age, and when they were stopped," Lawrence told Mashable. "The idea was to bring a more human face to the raw stats and to put information out there that people may not be as familiar with — like the reason NYPD stopped people [might be] wearing clothes commonly used in a crime. What are clothes commonly worn in a crime?"

01/08/11: Police stop a 26-year-old in Staten Island, citing "casing a victim or location." No weapon is found.

— Stop and Frisk (@stopandfrisk) June 25, 2013

01/08/11: Police stop a 39-year-old in Queens, citing "actions indicative of a drug transaction." No weapon is found.

— Stop and Frisk (@stopandfrisk) June 25, 2013


http://mashable.com/2013/06/25/twitter-stop-and-frisk/