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The New York Police Department says its “stop-and-frisk” practice, which allows officers to search anyone they deem suspicious, is a major reason behind the city’s low crime rate. But in Brownsville, a section of Brooklyn that statistics show has the most “stop and frisks” in the city, residents say they feel unfairly targeted. Video
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New York cop shot patrolling public housing complex
(Reuters) - A New York City police officer patrolling a Manhattan housing project was shot in the chest at point blank range early on Thursday by an unidentified gunman who remained at large.
Housing officer Brian Groves, 30, was in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital after the 3:30 a.m. shooting in a stairwell of the Seward Houses on the Lower East Side, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
He said police discovered a man with a gun as they opened a stairway door and chased him down four flights of stairs before the suspect, described as a black man in his 20s with beaded dreadlocks, fired a silver revolver, hitting Groves.
The officer was wearing a bulletproof vest, according to New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly.
"Officer Groves was doing what so many officers do every day; stopping a suspicious individual to question him," Kelly said in a statement.
Crime in city housing developments was the focus of a recent Reuters investigation into the NYPD's controversial stop and frisk policy, which critics say unfairly ensnares minorities.
Police officers routinely patrol New York housing projects, where one in five city murders occurred last year and where one in four guns were seized.
A Reuters analysis released Tuesday showed the densest concentrations of police stops fell in and around city housing developments, home to poor families and where 90 percent of residents are black or Hispanic. More than half the searches happened inside - in stairwells, lobbies and corridors.
Groves is the ninth NYPD officer to be shot in the line of duty this year.
(Additional reporting by Janet Roberts; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
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Those places are hell.
Designed to help the poor, they harbor the more criminal elements of destitute lives.
Imagine a prison without guards..that is a NY city housing project.
Just the fact that a 30-year-old NYC police officer was shot in the chest while on patrol justifies continued stopping and frisking. Housing projects are known for crime.
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Problem is, it places those who really need the resources and live respectable lives at a disadvantage. Stop and frisk is just a violation of personal rights so that isn’t the answer either.
The answer is to ban anyone convicted of a crime (especially drug related) from applying or being accepted into public housing. Also, double the penalties for anyone caught committing a crime while on public housing property. As for residents caught in criminal behavior…expulsion.
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