A report filed today by counsel for plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit challenging unconstitutional practices of the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) shows that thousands of people were stopped and frisked without reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct in the first six months of 2018.
The report, which rises out of a 2011 consent decree in Bailey v. City of Philadelphia, shows that the PPD stopped more than 6,000 people without legal justification from January to June of this year. That represents 16 percent of total pedestrian stops and 30 percent of frisks.
The report describes significant racial disparities, as well: the subjects of more than 80 percent of the stops and 87 percent of the frisks were African-American or Latino. Those two racial groups comprise 56 percent of the city’s population. A more detailed report on racial bias will be filed with the Court by the end of November.
The plaintiffs are represented by David Rudovsky, Paul Messing, and Susan Lin of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg, and Lin LLP; Mary Catherine Roper of the ACLU of Pennsylvania; and Seth Kreimer, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.
Read the press release and all filings in the case at the ACLU of PA’s website: https://www.aclupa.org/our-work/legal/legaldocket/baileyetalvcityofphiladelp