The NYPD yesterday released stop-and-frisk numbers for 2012, revealing that cops used the controversial tactic 22 percent less and seized 14 percent fewer weapons than in 2011.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the drop in stop-and-frisks reflects a fall in staffing in high-crime areas — also called “impact zones.”
“Stops declined after increased training and a decline in impact staffing, but ultimately the number reflects suspicious behavior observed by police officers,” Browne said.
“There was a period after the first quarter where staffing of impact posts, which had been doubled, was lowered to address demand for staffing of regular precinct assignments,” he added.
According to the numbers:
* Cops made 685,724 stops in 2011, compared with 533,042 last year.
* They used stop-and-frisk to take 780 guns off city streets last year, a 5 percent drop from 2011.
* A total of 7,137 weapons were confiscated. The number of knives recovered was 4,970, a 15 percent decline from 2011.
* There were also 1,387 “other” types of weapons recovered last year — a 12 percent drop from 2011.
* Five percent of the stops last year ended with a summons being issued and 6 percent ended with an arrest, according to the new NYPD numbers. Those numbers are about the same as the 2011 figures.
In a letter to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly wrote that the percentage of minorities stopped matched up with suspect descriptions provided by victims of violent crime.
The racial breakdown of stops last year stayed roughly the same, with 55 percent being black.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, a persistent critic of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, slammed the numbers.
“These numbers show that the NYPD continues to stop, interrogate and humiliate innocent people far too frequently and that New Yorkers of color continue to bear the brunt of this indignity,” said NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman.
Lieberman also said guns were found in only .01 percent of stops, calling the figure “an unbelievably poor yield rate for such an intrusive, wasteful and humiliating police action.”
But in releasing the numbers, the NYPD compared percentages of minorities stopped with the percentage each group represented among violent crime suspects.
For example, blacks made up 55 percent of suspects stopped and 66 percent of violent crime suspects last year.
Hispanics were 32 percent of the stop subjects and 26 percent of the violent crime suspects.
Whites made up 10 percent of the people stopped and 6 percent of the violent crime suspects.
Asians were just 3 percent of the stop subjects and only 2 percent of the violent crime suspects.
The statistics on stop-and-frisks of minorities did not change significantly in 2012. Males made up 91 percent of suspects stopped.
Earlier this week, the NYPD released a report that broke down those targeted by precinct and race.
Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct, which includes East New York, had more than 31,000 people stopped, with 97 percent either black or Hispanic.