Stop and frisk:
Angel Ortiz is part of a group opposed to the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy. The policy allows officers to randomly stop civilians and briefly question and search them.
The police stopped 684,330 people in 2011.
More than 90 percent of those stopped were male, and 87 percent were either Latino or black. The possible racial profiling is what caused Ortiz to voice his opposition to the policy.
In 2011, 12 percent of the people stopped were summoned, and police recovered 8,263 weapons as a result of the policy.
In 2011, the police department received 1,720 complaints about the policy.
Source: The Guardian
An opponent of the New York Police Department was arrested for selling false tickets to Broadway shows Monday.
Angel Ortiz, 19, has spoken out against the department’s stop-and-frisk policy.
Ortiz is charged with selling tickets to productions of “Book of Mormon” and “Kinky Boots.”
NEW YORK — An outspoken opponent of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy was accused of selling bogus tickets to Broadway shows and other sought-after events, according to court documents.
Angel Ortiz, 19, was charged with grand larceny Monday. His lawyer didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Manhattan prosecutors said Ortiz sold a pair of fake tickets to the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Book of Mormon” for $350 in total and a set of three phony tickets for $480. Tickets to the show run from about $70 to about $300 per ticket.
He also was accused of selling a pair of tickets to the award-winning “Kinky Boots” for $280. Tickets for that show usually cost $90 to $160 each.
Ortiz is part of a federal lawsuit challenging a program known as Operation Clean Halls that sends police to patrol private dwellings. He and others said police harassed people coming and going from their homes, especially black and Hispanic men.
The case is related to the large federal trial last year on the department’s stop-and-frisk policy. A federal judge found the department violated civil rights of New Yorkers and ordered major reforms to the overall stop-and-frisk tactic and the Clean Halls program. But those changes are on hold pending appeals.
Ortiz appeared at a news conference in October 2012 with others involved in the lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, saying he was stopped and wrongly arrested for trespassing outside his Bronx building. The NYPD has said it does not profile and does not misuse the policy.
Ortiz is due back in court Thursday. Prosecutors said he also sold fake tickets online to a Michael Bublé concert, two for $309 in all. Officers later grabbed Ortiz with seven other forged Michael Bublé tickets in a black briefcase after working with the hoodwinked ticket-buyer to reach out to Ortiz, according to a criminal complaint.
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