NYPD on Trial: Police Say They Are Forced to Harass Kids in Order to Meet Quotas

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/nypd-trial-police-say-they-are-forced-harass-kids-order-meet-quotas

Last week, NYPD whistleblowers Adhyl Polanco and Pedro Serrano, who secretly recorded supervisors demanding that officers fill quotas, testified in federal court that they were forced to violate the law to meet numbers. “We were handcuffing kids for no reason,” Polanco testified. The two officers are testifying in a class-action suit targeting the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy.

Quotas for NYPD activity are illegal under New York labor law, but secretly recorded roll calls reveal supervisors pushing officers to get "20-and 1," meaning 20 summonses and 1 arrest per month. Monthly quotas also required five "250s," or street stops.

“There’s a difference between” the department’s policies on paper and “what goes on out there,” in real life, Polanco told the court.

The 40th Precinct, where Pedro Serrano serves, recorded the highest number of police stops in the Bronx in 2011. That year, Serrano recorded the 40th Precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, telling him to stop “the right people at the right time, the right location," whom he also identified as people creating "the most problems."