Our Mission & Focus
The Monitor Team works to ensure that the NYPD engages in constitutional stops, frisks, and searches.
The Monitor Team’s focus is on the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices, as well as its trespass enforcement. The Monitor Team regularly assesses the NYPD’s compliance and publicly files reports with the court detailing their findings.
Know Your Rights
When you are stopped, frisked, and/or searched by a New York City police officer, you have certain rights.
Who We Are
Latest Report
On June 3, 2025, the Monitor filed its Twenty-Fifth Report, an analysis of the NYPD’s Community Response Team’s (“CRT”) practices regarding stop, frisk, and search, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Highlights include the following:
- While the CRT was established to respond to quality-of-life conditions as opposed to routinely engaging in Terry stops, the Monitor’s audit found that CRTs were frequently engaging in Terry stops, frisks, and searches.
- In practice, CRTs appear to be another version of the NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety Teams (“NSTs”) or Public Safety Teams (“PSTs”), engaging in proactive enforcement instead of responding to calls for service or focusing on specific quality-of-life conditions.
- CRT officers unlawfully stopped, frisked, and searched individuals at higher rates than patrol officers. CRT stops, frisks, and searches were constitutional 84%, 64%, and 59% of the time, respectively, compared to 92% of stops, 89% of frisks, and 77% of searches by patrol officers.
- Meaningful NYPD supervisory review of CRT stops was lacking. For example, reviewing supervisors found that all but one of 50 reported CRT stops had a legal basis, and that all of the reported frisks and searches were lawful, even though the Monitor found unlawful encounters in each category.
- CRT officers failed to properly document Terry stops, instead labeling the encounters as Level 2 stops. Within the set of mislabeled stops, only 31% had stop reports documenting the encounters.
- The CRT stops disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic men: 97% of the individuals stopped, frisked, and searched were Black of Hispanic men.
