Official Website of the Independent Monitor of the New York City Police Department

On June 5, 2023, the Monitor Team filed a report with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York regarding the NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety Teams.

• In March 2022, at Mayor Eric Adams’ direction, the NYPD deployed NSTs to combat gun violence in high-crime areas.  Despite their experience, special training, and allegedly close supervision, NST officers are engaging in more unconstitutional stops, frisks, and searches than their non-NST peers. 
• There appears to be inadequate oversight and review of these unlawful NST encounters at all levels; sergeants, lieutenants, and commanding officers fail to identify and correct the unconstitutional policing.  The NYPD should monitor and audit NSTs more thoroughly and develop a plan for improvement within the next 30 days.
• There is a bright spot.  Some commands with NST units do appear to be engaging in constitutional stops, frisks, and searches consistently.  Those commands should serve as models for other commands that are performing inadequately.  The fact that some commands have a very high level of compliance makes clear that lawful and effective policing are not incompatible.

Here are our findings (from our review of NSTs from April 1 through October 30, 2022):

• NST officers made 9% more unlawful stops than did officers Department-wide in 2020.
• For self-initiated encounters, only 69% of stops were lawful.
• Only 73% of frisks and 63% of searches were lawful.
• Only 41% of stops, 32% of frisks, and 26% of searches by NST officers in the 41 Precinct were lawful.
• According to stop reports, over 97% of people encountered were Black or Hispanic.
• First-line supervisors are not identifying and correcting improper stops, frisks, and searches; oversight by the precinct command and the Department is similarly lacking.
• Fewer than 5 weapons were recovered from 230 NST car stops.