Shooting Increases Racial Tension

New York, NY —

Last weekend's shooting of an unarmed black man in Queens has re-ignited a perennial debate over racial profiling and the NYPD. WNYC's Bob Hennelly has more.

REPORTER: The grief over the tragic turn of events that led to the death of Sean Bell on his wedding day have prompted critics of the NYPD to invoke the names of other unarmed men of color who have been killed in the last few years by police gunfire. Councilman James Barron pointed to the 2004 case of 19 year-old Timothy Stansbury who was killed when he used a rooftop as a shortcut.

BARRON: And this is a person who was walking across the roof and was going to a party and met by a police bullet in his chest and the Commissioner said it was unjustified and Stansbury's murderer is still on the police force....It’s a racist pattern.

REPORTER: Commissioner Kelly said it was a Brooklyn grand jury in the Stansbury death that decided not to pursue the case against the officer in the case.

KELLY: The Grand Jury voted a no true bill for the officer involved in that shooting. Yes, he is a member of the Department. He is on modified assignment. He's gone through a disciplinary process. No final determination has been made.

REPORTER: The NYPD contends last year 9 civilians were killed by police gunfire. That they contend is a historically low number. A Department spokesman says the NYPD did not have a racial breakdown of those fatalities. Several City Council members contend there has been insufficient Department follow up on a 1999 report from Attorney General Elliot Spitzer that looked at over 175,000 stop and frisks and found that blacks and minorities were stopped at a disproportionately higher rate than whites, often for reasons that were not legally justifiable.

Kelly counters his department has acted on all of Spitzer's recommendations. A sizeable block of the City Council's 51 members want Kelly to back that claim up in public hearings.