New Yorkers rally against police searches

US: Activists on Wednesday announced a demonstration in New York against the police's so-called stop and frisk policy, in which tens of thousands of mostly innocent people are searched annually for weapons.

“It's wrong and it's immoral and racist and unconstitutional,” Princeton professor and leftwing activist Cornel West told reporters gathered outside the New York Police Department headquarters. “We don't want to amend it, we want to end it.” West and about a dozen other activists said that opponents of the policy would join up September 13 to blow whistles on city streets.

“It's going to be thousands and thousands of people across New York City blowing the whistle,” Carl Dix said.

“When the whistles blow, people are gonna turn their heads. Windows are gonna open,” he said. “There's gonna be a whole different level of resistance. People are gonna stop suffering in silence.”

Stop and frisk is defended by city police and Mayor Michael Bloomberg as one of the main tools for rooting out illegal guns in high-crime areas, where shootings are an almost daily occurrence.

Police patrolling in the heavily black or Latino neighborhoods stop and search people in the street on the slightest suspicion of illegal activity. AFP