An ordinance bill that would require the NYPD to report “low-level” police encounters cleared a major hurdle Monday when City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams threw her support behind the measure, Gothamist reports. The bill, called the "How Many Stops Act," is expected to pass in the Council’s last meeting of this year on Dec. 20, according to Councilmember Alexa Avilés, who helped to introduce the ordinance in July.
The NYPD is already required to document stop-and-frisk reports and arrests, which legally require officers to have “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause,” according to the NYPD training guide, but the How Many Stops Act governs lower-level stops called “level one” or “level two” stops, which are police encounters where the subject is legally free to leave, including when police stop someone to ask where they are going or for their I.D. Requiring police to report, and regularly publish data about, low-level stops would give lawmakers crucial information about who is being stopped, where, and how often. “We’re trying to understand the scale and scope of policing in New York City,” Avilés said. The proposed legislation comes as the city re-examines the difficult legacy of stop and frisk a decade after a federal judge ruled that its application by the NYPD was unconstitutional.