Zack Reed and Jeff Johnson

Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed, shown here with fellow councilman Jeff Johnson at a June rally to decry violence, is calling on the city's police department to create and implement a version of stop, question and frisk to combat gun violence.

(Mary Kilpatrick, NEOMG)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A version of the controversial stop-and-frisk police tactic -- deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge -- could come to Cleveland if one city councilman gets his way.

But Ward 2 City Councilman Zack Reed said the key is to insert one word.

"It's not stop and frisk," he said. "It's stop, question and frisk."

To combat what Reed calls "out-of-control" gun violence in Cleveland neighborhoods, he called on the city's police department to institute a policy allowing officers to target "hot-spot" neighborhoods, stop and question people in a high-crime area they deem suspicious, and pat them down if officers' suspicions still hold.

If that practice is combined with increased foot patrols and neighborhood cameras, Reed said he expects the city's crime rate would plummet.

"I believe the police should have every tool in their tool box to get that illegal gun out of your hands," he said.

Reed said city officials, including Mayor Frank Jackson, Safety Director Michael McGrath and police Chief Calvin Williams, would have to meet with counterparts in New York City to create a policy within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution that would work for Cleveland.

WKYC reports Jackson called Reed's proposals "armchair police-chiefing."

In New York, police were permitted to stop suspects based on suspicions about their behavior and appearances. As the Washington Post reported last year, police could detain and question pedestrians, and potentially search them, if they had a "reasonable suspicion" the pedestrian "committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or a Penal Law misdemeanor."

The New York City Public Advocate's office reported 532,911 stops were conducted in 2012, down from 685,724 in 2011, the Washington Post reported. The vast majority of those stops were of black or Hispanic people.

A federal court banned the tactic in August 2013, saying it was applied in a discriminatory fashion against minorities.

The Washington Post, in reporting on the ruling, wrote Shira Scheindlin, a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York, ruled the "stop-and-frisk" policy violates the Fourteenth Amendment's promise of equal protection, as black and Hispanic people are subject to stops and searches at a higher rate than whites.

Reed, who is black, acknowledged that many high-crime neighborhoods "have certain demographics," but said how stop, question and frisk is implemented and where it's implemented are two issues.

"I'm tired of seeing African American males get killed in senseless incidents of gun violence," he said.

In late January, New York's new Mayor Bill de Blasio, who campaigned on a promise to "end the era of stop-and-frisk policing," announced a deal to drop the city's appeal of the ruling.

The NYPD is studying years of data to determine if the decline in stop-and-frisk is having an impact on crime, CBS New York reported in June. Overall, crime in the city is down, but there has been an uptick of shootings in certain neighborhoods.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told CBS New York in June the department will have a better idea about any connection after the analysis is completed in several weeks.

"Stop, question, and frisk by our officers is down dramatically," Bratton told CBS New York. "Our arrest numbers are staying as they have been so it's a bit of a contradiction."

Bratton has previously said he didn't believe there was a link between the drop in stops and an increase in shootings, according to CBS New York. Overall, stop-and-frisk numbers dropped last year from 533,000 to 194,000.