The Philadelphia Police Department’s use of stop-and-frisk still has “serious flaws,” according to a report filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and and the law firm of Kairsy Rudovsky Messing & Feinberg in federal court, reports the Philadelphia Daily News. The report was part of a 2011 consent decree in a lawsuit accusing the Police Department of subjecting black and Latino men to unconstitutional stop-and-frisk searches. The department was required to train officers better and manage a database that would allow the ACLU to analyze where stop-and-frisk searches were occurring and why.
“Both sides knew it would take some time, but three and a half years later, they still have some substantial problems,” said attorney David Rudovsky. The report states that out of 2,519 pedestrian stops in the first half of 2014, 37 percent were made without reasonable suspicion. Police asserted that the number of frisks without reasonable suspicion was only 5 percent. Contraband was found in 58, or 2.5 percent, of the 2,519 pedestrian stops. Out of the 433 frisks, only two firearms were seized, and in 78 instances where someone was frisked because of a “bulge” in their pocket, a weapon was found once.