The trial of Floyd v. City of New York, the stop and frisk case, continues in the Southern District before Judge Shira Scheindlin with the appearance of a star, the just-retired Chief of Department, Joseph Esposito. It wasn't that he was necessarily a star witness, but to be a three-star Chief in a department that rivals the armies of medium sized nations is to be a star. It shines less bright, though, under Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who doesn't like Espo too much and has marginalized him from the real power of ruling the department.
Still, as a witness at trial, in a courtroom with everyone's eyes on him, it was Espo's moment to shine again, to show the world why he was worthy of commanding the troops, controlling tens of thousands of weapons pointed at the heart of New Yorkers. This was Espo's moment to seize the stage, explain in small words why the NYPD was saving the City from rape and pillage, and emerge the hero.
Though the question asked was narrow and direct, no mere lawyer could control Espo. Via the New York Times:
“That increase is all on your watch?” a civil rights lawyer, Jonathan C. Moore, asked, referring to the rise in police stops, which spiked to 533,042 in 2012, from 97,837 in 2002.
“Yes, it is,” Mr. Esposito responded, “as is the 40 percent decrease in crime during my time.”
Zing. Except unlike the deference shown a police witness in most criminal trials, Judge Scheindlin wasn't about to let her witness give the same speech that wowed them at the old age home.
But by then, the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, had heard enough, saying that Mr. Esposito’s answer was “turning into a narrative, otherwise known as a speech, and I am not here for that purpose.”
Smack. The questions of Espo focused on whether anybody at 1 Police Plaza gave any thought to the hundreds of thousands of black and Hispanic youth who were stopped, searched and released after being subjected to ordinary humiliation.
“Have you discussed with Commissioner Kelly the toll that the policies that are being challenged here may be having on a generation of black and Hispanic youth?” Mr. Moore said.
Mr. Esposito responded, “I discussed the issue of stop, question, frisk with Commissioner Kelly and those issues may have come up.”
But details were not forthcoming.
After a decade, half a generation growing up with the understanding that walking outside was forfeiting one's right to be left alone, had no one in this middling army given any thought to whether something was amiss? Espo had an answer, a few good sergeants.
One line of defense, Mr. Esposito noted, was the sergeants who were on the streets checking up on their officers. “Our sergeants are the best in the nation, the best in the world, actually,” he said.
After the cheers from the sergeants union died down, and the rest of the room was unmoved by Espo's otherwise convincing homage to stripes, he got down to the real proof that the New York City Police Department could do no wrong.
Mr. Esposito also put much stock in the paperwork that officers must fill out after each street stop. That form includes numerous check boxes, each describing behavior that might lead to a stop, like “furtive movements” or “actions indicative of casing.”
Mr. Esposito insisted that a supervisor could conclude that a stop was legal based on reviewing that form alone.
“If it’s filled out properly, it gives you reasonable suspicion. And if you have reasonable suspicion established, then you do not have racial profiling,” Mr. Esposito said. “It’s as simple as that.”
A checklist. The holy grail of grocery clerks. Check off a few boxes and, bingo, reasonable suspicion is established. "It's as simple as that."
While the Floyd trial has offered more insight into the working and thinking of the NYPD than perhaps any before it, even the scandals like the Dirty 30 or the Knapp Commission, this may be the testimony that provides the deepest understanding of the failure to grasp what's at risk when cops roam the street under the leadership of a guy like Espo.
With his three stars, he was a "near-mythic figure" in the NYPD. Yet on the witness stand, he revealed himself to be an errand boy for grocery store clerks, who thought a checklist was real. "It's as simple as that." They so adore checklists. Check the right boxes and all is well with the world. There is no better proof than a checklist.
What Espo could not have anticipated was that the judge, the same one who wasn't interested in his elevator pitch and the snappy answers developed from years of being the honored guest at dinners thrown by community groups in Queens who appreciated how the police kept those nasty foreigners from ruining their neighborhoods, wasn't as enamored with checklists.
But Judge Scheindlin appeared skeptical that the paperwork proved anything.
“Any officer can check off ‘high-crime area’ and ‘furtive movements,’ ” Judge Scheindlin said, referring to two check-box categories on the stop-and-frisk form. “You really don’t know much about the stop, looking at the form, do you?”
What happened next isn't said, but my guess is that Espo sat there, dazed and confused. As he finally shook off this unfamiliar treatment at the hand of someone who was supposed to understand that he was a Super Chief, a witness to be shown respect, if not awe, I suspect his mind wandered to the checklist he completed when he retired with a pension that would choke a horse a mere two weeks before. And he smiled, knowing that he was protected by his checklists.
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