The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and police department for conducting allegedly illegal stop-and-frisks of passengers riding in livery cars.
Officers can pull over any livery cars with stickers in their windows showing they are enrolled in the police department's Taxi-Livery Robbery Inspection Program, or TRIP, a program allows police to pull over and visually inspect these vehicles and briefly question the drivers.
The lawsuit does not challenge that aspect of the program.
But the Constitution does not permit police officers to pull passengers out of these cabs when there is no reasonable suspicion that they are engaged in criminal activity, said Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).
"Even though the police know that there's no suspicion about the passenger, they're forcing people out of cars, they're frisking them, they're searching them, they're searching their bags," said Dunn. "This is the stop-and-frisks that happen on the street transported into livery cabs."
The lawsuit is brought on behalf of two passengers — one from Brooklyn and one from the Bronx — who were riding in livery cabs when they were detained, questioned and searched. Lawyers said the livery drivers had told police there was no reason to be concerned the passengers were committing crimes.
The plaintiffs seek an injunction to end stop-and-frisks of livery car passengers when there is no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
Dunn says most of the livery car passengers getting stopped-and-frisked are black or Latino, just as most pedestrians who are stopped-and-frisked on the street are black or Latino.
The police department declined to comment on the litigation.
Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist who covers criminal justice, terrorism and the courts for WNYC. She found her way into public radio after practicing law for five years, and can definitely say that walking the streets of New York City with a microphone is a lot more fun than being holed up in the office writing letters to opposing counsel.
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