stop-and-frisk oversight – A federal monitor says NYPD didn’t properly audit thousands of CRT stops, likely understating unconstitutional findings and reigniting calls to shut the unit down.
A federal court required NYPD to review stop-and-frisk decisions to ensure they were legal.. Yet for much of the past three years. one of the department’s most aggressive units did not receive that basic oversight. according to the department’s own federal compliance monitor—a lapse that now appears to have masked likely unconstitutional policing.
More than a decade ago. a federal court found the NYPD had been unconstitutionally stopping and frisking Black and Hispanic residents. and ordered specific fixes. including a mechanism to ensure officers’ stops were properly reviewed for legality.. The newly disclosed failure. recently uncovered and reported by the NYPD’s federal monitor overseeing compliance with the court’s 2013 decision. indicates the department did not consistently provide that required review for many officers in the Community Response Team. or CRT.
The monitor data show that more than 2,000 stops were not properly reviewed.. The breakdown was not presented as a minor administrative error.. It points to a specific compliance gap inside a politically connected. aggressive unit that has drawn sustained criticism for its tactics. secrecy. and the disproportionate impact its stops have had on Black and Hispanic New Yorkers.
The CRT’s oversight problems have not been theoretical.. A separate investigative report last year found the unit often worked around meaningful monitoring as it pursued so-called quality-of-life targets. including unlicensed motorbikes and ATVs.. That reporting also described how the team’s approach could include high-speed car chases and operations that were difficult for oversight bodies to track.
At the center of the controversy is the question of how often unconstitutional actions went undetected when the court-ordered review system did not catch up.. The CRT’s record has been a major driver of the scrutiny: it has drawn hundreds of civilian complaints since it was created.. In addition. a ProPublica analysis last year found that more than half of the officers assigned to the team had been found by the Civilian Complaint Review Board to have engaged in misconduct at least once in their career. a much higher share than the departmentwide comparison group.
The oversight failure also has immediate implications for the accuracy of the monitor’s prior compliance estimates.. In a letter to the court. the federal monitor said the newly discovered failure likely makes the monitor’s earlier figures on CRT constitutional compliance unreliable.. The monitor wrote that the true rate is “likely lower” than what had been reported.
Before the latest discovery, the monitor had already raised alarms about the CRT’s behavior.. A report last year stated that only 59% of CRT stops. searches. and frisks were lawful. a substantially worse rate than what the NYPD’s patrol units were achieving.. Nearly all of the stops involved Black or Hispanic residents, according to that same reporting.
Mylan Denerstein, the court-appointed monitor, sharply criticized the NYPD for not auditing the CRT stops.. In a statement to ProPublica. Denerstein said the failure to audit meant unconstitutional stops. frisks. and searches went undetected. calling it “unacceptable” and urging the City to do more and prevent the problem from recurring.
The NYPD said it moved to correct the issues after the error was identified.. In a statement to ProPublica. the department said it is working collaboratively with the monitor to address the oversight lapse and pointed to additional steps Commissioner Jessica Tisch has taken to strengthen oversight and accountability.
The failure had a narrower footprint at first.. For the first two and a half years after the CRT was created. the lack of proper stop review affected only part of the unit. including a leadership component.. But the problem expanded last fall after the NYPD restructured the CRT. placing officers stationed across the city under a central command.. The department said the change was intended to increase oversight as new commanders took over.
Instead, stops for the entire unit—now about 180 officers—went unaudited during the period in question, according to the reporting.. That shift matters because it suggests the oversight mechanics depended on how the unit was organized and tracked. and that the restructuring disrupted compliance rather than strengthening it.
One former CRT commander, John Chell, defended the unit’s overall record, saying the team “really changed the game.” Chell, who retired as the department’s top uniformed officer last year, acknowledged mistakes but argued the unit helped stabilize the city and “did our job.”
Civil rights advocates and lawmakers have challenged that framing for years. arguing that the CRT’s aggressive tactics and limited oversight have caused too much harm.. State Sen.. Jessica Ramos. who has said she was wrongfully stopped and frisked by the NYPD more than a decade ago. said the unit’s operation shows a pattern that should not continue and urged disbanding.
The New York Civil Liberties Union. one of the original litigants in the stop-and-frisk case. also called for the CRT to be shuttered.. Lawyers said the units have a long history of aggressive policing against people of color and that there is no justification for them. adding that the harm outweighs any claimed public safety benefit.
The controversy is occurring as New York’s political leadership changes.. Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office in January and campaigned on reimagining public safety. and his administration has backed shuttering another unit that has faced criticism for heavy-handed approaches to protests.. But his office declined to directly address the growing calls to disband the CRT.
A spokesperson for Mamdani said the administration is aware of concerns raised about the CRT and the steps the NYPD has said it has taken to address them, while emphasizing a commitment to improving public safety in a way that reflects the needs and values of New Yorkers.
The CRT’s rise began three years ago. with the unit’s focus shifting alongside the policing priorities of then-Mayor Eric Adams.. Early efforts emphasized cracking down on illegal motorcycles. with the unit roaming proactively for suspected crime rather than waiting for calls—an approach described as similar to tactics used by another of the NYPD’s most infamous units.
That proactive strategy helped fuel a reputation for brutality almost immediately.. Months after the unit started. an officer in an unmarked police car spotted a man on a dirtbike and swerved into oncoming traffic. striking the motorcyclist and causing injuries from which the man later died.. The NYPD said the officer was punished with a 13-day vacation penalty.
ProPublica reported that even NYPD leaders found it difficult to oversee the unit’s work.. Department leadership described the CRT as essentially created off the books. a structure that ultimately contributed to the failure to review stops.. Officers assigned to the unit were often not formally attached to it. so their conduct was not properly tracked. according to those descriptions.. A former department official said the team operated in a way that left “everyone… a ghost.”
That lack of formal accountability extended beyond the administrative review problems and into the stop-and-frisk process itself.. When the monitor first became aware of the CRT, the NYPD assured it the unit would not conduct many stops.. Later, the monitor found that the team was “frequently” doing them.
The numbers now cited underscore the stakes of the monitoring breakdown.. In 2025, the CRT recorded 1,400 stop-and-frisks, according to monitor and NYPD data.. More than 900 of those stops were not properly reviewed—meaning that a large share of the department’s actions were not subjected to the legality checks the court required.
For New Yorkers watching the CRT debate, the newly disclosed oversight failure is not only about whether wrong stops happened.. It also focuses on whether the system designed to catch them was working. and whether it was undermined by the unit’s structure. tactics. and internal tracking practices.. With the monitor suggesting earlier compliance figures were likely overstated. the fight now shifts from allegations to the accuracy of the record—and to whether the unit’s model can be repaired or should be ended.
NYPD stop-and-frisk Community Response Team federal court compliance federal monitor New York politics police oversight