‘Biking While Black’ Can Get You A Criminal Summons In New York City

Think Progress

The New York Police Department’s record of targeting people of color is well documented. Under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, 87 percent of people stopped under the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk program were black or Latino. Black men between the ages of 14 and 24 were stopped so frequently that there were actually more police stops of young black men than there are young black men in New York City. Though incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to reform the stop-and-frisk program, racial minorities are still much more likely to be stopped than white New Yorkers. Under de Blasio, “55.4 percent of those stopped were black, down only 0.4 percent from 2013 and up 0.6 percent from 2012 . . . [a]nd 30.2 percent of those stopped were Latino, compared to 29.4 percent in 2013 and 31.8 percent in 2012.”

A new study by Queens College sociology professor Harry Levine and former ACLU attorney Loren Siegel finds the NYPD’s propensity to target African Americans and Latinos extends even to the most banal offenses. Levine and Siegel examined the rate that police hand down criminal summons to people riding their bicycle on the sidewalk. Of the 15 New York neighborhoods with the most summonses for this offense, 12 are predominantly black or Latino. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods with the least summonses are overwhelmingly white: