by Eric Umansky

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

What Happened: A monitor appointed by a federal court has found that a New York City Police Department unit has been unjustly stopping and searching New Yorkers, almost all of them Black and Hispanic men. The report on the NYPD’s Community Response Team echoes a recent ProPublica investigation that found the unit, championed by Mayor Eric Adams, has been ridden with abuses.

The federal monitor found that while the CRT was initially created in the early days of the Adams’ administration to focus on so-called quality-of-life issues such as illegal motorbikes, its officers have more recently been “stopping, frisking, and searching unconstitutionally.”

What They Said: In a sample of body-worn camera footage, the monitor found that 41% of stops, searches, and frisks by CRT officers were unlawful, a far higher........

© ProPublica