The tactic sounds like a souped-up version of the New York City Police Department’s much-maligned “stop-and-frisk” policy, which the police commissioner promised to reform last year. But while the MPD’s regulations do permit stop-and-frisks, jump-outs would violate those rules, based on descriptions from victims and activists. For example, a stop for reasonable suspicion is not supposed to exceed 10 minutes, an officer must be clear about the reason for the stop, and the officer must file paperwork afterward. Civil rights lawyers say that in many cases of jump-outs, none of that is happening. Armed with arrest records and “hundreds of anecdotal stories,” ACLU lawyers have testified in court and before the D.C. City Council that jump-outs are illegal and target people of color. “Jump-outs are one of the strategies and tactics that make up this entire matrix of policies and practices that police use in black communities to aggressively pursue low-level offenses,” says Seema Sadanandan, policy and advocacy director in D.C. for the ACLU. Sadanandan, who regularly trains students in how to interact with the police, says she’s heard jump-out stories from children as young as 11.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 21:59:55 +0000
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