Following up on the recent release of statistics showing that the number of African Americans and Latinos stopped and searched by New York City police vastly exceeds their percentage of the population, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the city claiming that under state law the names and other identifying information regarding those searched but for whom charges are later dismissed must be purged from the records. In the first three months of this year 9% of those searched by New York police officers were white, 33% were Hispanic and 52% percent were black.

But ironically even if the suit is won, the much larger group of people who are searched but never charged will remain in the database. In 2009 police reported 575,000 people were stopped and frisked. Since 2004 the police admit to stopping and frisking three million people. Over eighty per cent of these were either African American or Hispanic. But only six per cent of these people are charged. The percentage that the suit affects would be considerably less than six per cent of those stopped and frisked.