During a Fox News town hall aimed at “African-American concerns,” Donald Trump proposed nationwide stop-and-frisk policing to address so-called black-on-black crime.
The Republican presidential nominee was asked about violence in the black community by an audience member, to which Trump suggested the controversial policy that was first used in New York City.
“I would so stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically,” Trump said.
“In New York City it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way that worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.”
Politicians and civil rights advocates have long slammed the stop-and-frisk policy as discriminatory toward minorities. In 2013, a federal judge ruled the practice unconstitutional, calling it a policy of “indirect racial profiling.”
An investigation led by the New York state attorney general found that only 3 percent of traffic stops “led to guilty pleas or convictions at trial” and only 0.1 percent were for violent crimes.