Police Commissioner Ray Kelly warned the City Council yesterday that the anti-racial-profiling bill it’s set to vote on today could force the removal of security cameras from high-crime neighborhoods.
Kelly told the panel that if cameras placed in high-crime neighborhoods or housing projects recorded members of a racial or ethnic group at a rate higher than their percentage in the city’s overall population, they would be able to sue by claiming bias.
“This would permit disparate impact lawsuits not only against the practice of stop, question and frisk, but against any police activity, operation, policy or program, including the use of police cameras in your district as well as in New York City Housing Authority developments,” Kelly said in a letter to the council.
“We have counted on you as a supporter of cameras in keeping public-housing developments and neighborhoods safe from crime, and we need your support for police cameras now more than ever,” Kelly said.
He said the high-tech Argus cameras are purposely placed in neighborhoods with high crime rates to prevent crime and help crack open cases.
Kelly said the bill would handcuff cops as they try to keep crime rates at record lows, by opening the floodgates to lawsuits.
“The bill would allow virtually everyone in New York City to sue the Police Department and individual police officers over the entire range of law-enforcement functions they perform,” Kelly wrote.
He concluded with a plea for council members to vote down the bill, which has widespread support on the panel but may fall short of the votes required to override a veto by Mayor Bloomberg.
“Please help us keep this important crime-fighting tool available to the Police Department. Your action against this bill tomorrow will save lives,” he said.
Brooklyn Democrats Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander, co-sponsors of the measure, say it would only expand the city’s existing racial-profiling law by adding other demographic classes that should be protected, such as the homeless and gay people.
Williams said the department should be able to deploy cameras without singling out people on the basis of race.
“I have funded cameras in my district and I’m not going to put in a bill that would take away those cameras,” Williams said.
“The absurdity of their claims by the day is increasing, and I think they’re ruining their own credibility.”
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg