Report Shows Racial Disparities In Philly's Use Of 'Stop-n-Frisk'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The latest numbers on the Philadelphia Police Department's use of stop and frisk shows African Americans continue to be stopped far more than other groups.
African American make up roughly 50 percent of Philadelphia population yet Black pedestrians are stopped 80 percent of the time.
Attorney David Rudovsky represents plaintiffs in the class action against the city that challenges the use of stop and frisk.
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"We don't see much of an improvement here," he said.
They recently issued a report showing a sharp decrease in the number of wrongful stops and frisks.
Rudovsky says the racial disparities could be due to over policing in Black neighborhoods, financial factors and age of those most likely to be stopped but regression analysis indicates otherwise.
"This is not the result necessarily of any kind of intentional race discrimination, but there is a lot of implicit bias that could be at work."
The city reports 70 percent of Black pedestrian stops in first half of 2016 were reasonable.
