New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the City Council to overturn a law that aimed to block the NY Police Departmentâ„¢s stop-and-frisk policy.
Bloomberg sued the City Council after it passed a bill 10 days ago that allows New York residents to sue NYPD if they believe they were the target of racial profiling.
The bill also created an independent watchdog to monitor the department. Bloomberg tried to veto the bill but the city council overrode it and the oversight bill was passed into law.
A federal judge ruled last month that NYPDâ„¢s stop-and-frisk tactics, under which officers stop people in high-crime areas they suspect of engaging in criminal activity, violated the constitutional rights of minorities in the city.
The judge wrote in a 105-page decision that police personnel were under pressure to raise the number of stops by Mayor Bloomberg since he took office in 2002 and designated Raymond Kelly to be NYPD Commissioner.
The New York Civil Liberties Union demonstrated in a 2012 report that there had been a sharp increase in the number of police stops over the period of Bloombergâ„¢s three terms in office.
The number of searches rose from 160,851 stops in 2003 to 685,724 in 2011, while half of the 2011 searches included physical searches.
Complaints about police brutality have been growing nationwide.
AHT/ARA
Republished from: Press TV