NEW YORK -- New Yorkers of varying races and religions rallied Saturday to demand more accountability from city police, accusing the nation's largest force of targeting innocent blacks, Latinos and Muslims while tracking crime.
If city officials don't acknowledge that the police department "has created a system of apartheid in this city of New York, we are going to show you that there will be no peace," said Kirsten John Foy, a top aide to New York Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.
Gathering in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, community leaders and politicians said that a culture of discrimination against minorities exists within the New York Police Department and that NYPD officers are randomly stopping and searching hundreds of thousands of minority residents each year.
A series of investigative reports by The Associated Press have revealed how after the 9/11 attacks the CIA helped the NYPD build domestic intelligence programs used to spy on Muslims.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has defended his department's aggressive policing of high-crime neighborhoods -- including the stop-and-frisk tactics. He says the practice has made the city safer by plucking out crimes both big and small. The CIA has also said its internal watchdog found nothing wrong with the spy agency's close partnership with the NYPD.
But City Councilwoman Letitia James told Saturday's gathering of more than 100: "Now is the time to act because too many people are being hurt."
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