The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing the NYPD of conducting racially discriminatory vehicle searches during traffic stops, describing the practice as stop-and-frisk behind the wheel.
Data obtained by the NYCLU shows Black drivers are ten times more likely to be searched during traffic stops than white drivers. Latino drivers face searches at six times the rate of white motorists. Of the over 28,000 vehicle searches conducted in 2024, according to reporting by News 12 Bronx, 84 percent involved Black or Latino drivers while fewer than four percent were white.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Federal Court by the NYCLU, Bronx Defender Services, and the NAACP, names two plaintiffs. Justin Cohen, a Westchester County resident, was pulled over in the Bronx in 2023 for alleged speeding. Body camera footage shows an officer frisking Cohen as he exits his vehicle and raising his arms to shoulder height during the search. Police found nothing illegal but seized the car and arrested Cohen anyway. The speeding ticket was later dismissed.
Christopher Oliver, a New York City resident, reports being stopped and searched four separate times without cause. Neither plaintiff received citations or had contraband discovered during their searches.
Daniel Lambright, senior counsel for criminal justice litigation at the NYCLU, called the pattern clear. "The NYPD's targeting of Black and Latino drivers with baseless vehicle searches is nothing more than stop-and-frisk on wheels," he told CBS News New York.
The geographic distribution of searches supports the discrimination claims. According to the Queens Daily Eagle, the 113th Precinct in Southeast Queens, which is 83 percent Black and Latino, had the highest vehicle search rate in the city at 8.3 percent of all stops. The 111th Precinct, covering predominantly white neighborhoods like Bayside and Douglaston, conducted 53,869 vehicle stops but searched only 0.1 percent of them.
The three precincts with the highest search counts are the 75th in Brooklyn, 113th in Queens, and 44th in the Bronx. All are at least 83 percent Black and Latino residents.
Traffic stops across the city increased 25 percent from 2023 to 2024, per Spectrum News, with Queens seeing the sharpest jump at 35 percent. Over two million stops have been recorded since 2022, when a city law requiring documentation of every vehicle stop took effect.
The NYPD data shows weapons were found in approximately four percent of all vehicle searches, according to Carscoops. That hit rate undermines claims the searches are driven by public safety rather than bias.
The department declined to comment on the lawsuit directly, instead referring to testimony from Joshua Levin, then director of legislative affairs, at an April 2025 City Council hearing. Levin argued the NYPD deploys more officers to high-crime areas based on 911 calls, which inevitably produces more enforcement activity.
That explanation fails to address why search rates differ so dramatically by race even within the same enforcement areas.
The lawsuit echoes the constitutional challenges that ended stop-and-frisk in 2013, when a federal judge ruled the NYPD violated individuals' rights through racially discriminatory street stops. The department remains under court supervision from that decision.
Cohen described the lasting impact of his 2023 stop. "Now, anytime I get behind the wheel and see a police car, I feel my stomach drop," he said at a Thursday press conference.
The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that the search policy violates constitutional protections, a permanent injunction ending the practice, and monetary damages for both plaintiffs. Whether a federal judge will find the NYPD violated the same principles that outlawed stop-and-frisk a decade ago now depends on how much the Constitution applies when you're sitting in a car instead of standing on a sidewalk.