On January 8, Scheindlin had ruled that the ‘stop and frisk' searches of NYPD's anti-crime program, also known as “Operation Clean Halls” violated constitutional protections and needed to be stopped with immediate effect.
The earlier order passed by the federal court had been in response to a law suit filed by a group of black and Latino residents who allege that the NYPD personnel are carrying out a regime of frisk first and develop the suspicion later.
The federal judge denied a separate request by the NYPD to delay the trial in the stop-and-frisk class action which alleges that the program is carried out on racial profiling.
In a statement, Heidi Grossman, a spokeswoman for the New York City Law Department said, “We believe the court correctly lifted the immediate relief it had ordered.” The executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs said that the judge did not contradict any of her earlier findings “and it may well expedite the final remedy process for dealing with the abuse of stop-and-frisk for all New Yorkers in a more efficient way.”
The case is Ligon et al v City of New York, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, no. 12-2274.
