Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally. | AP Photo/ Evan Vucci New York officials reject Trump's call for national stop-and-frisk

When Donald Trump said he would "do stop-and-frisk" across the nation to combat urban crime on Wednesday night, the Republican presidential candidate pointed to his hometown as proof that his plan would work.

Officials here quickly countered Trump's claim.


Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn said "there is no evidence" stop-and-frisk drove down crime.

"Stop-and-frisk is a widely discredited policy and it will not make the problem [of crime] go away," he told POLITICO New York.

Jeffries pointed to the doomsday warnings issued by supporters of stop-and-frisk in 2013, who said any reduction in police stops would lead to an increase in violence and bloodshed. Since 2014, stop-and-frisk is down, and so is crime.

Trump made his remark during a town hall meeting inside an African-American church in Cleveland, organized by Fox News and moderated by Sean Hannity, an avowed Trump supporter. The Republican nominee said he would "do stop-and-frisk," in large part because, “we did it in New York, it worked incredibly well."

"I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk,” he said.

But Jeffries said Chicago is an "outlier" in the national crime trend, which has seen crime declines from coast to coast.

"Chicago is unique and will require a unique form of intervention," he said, noting its struggle against illegal guns, which Jeffries said was a national problem that would require a national solution. (Earlier Wednesday morning, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, John Miller, told the Homeland Security Committee that "none of our guns [used in crimes] come from New York City," but rather, they "come from out of state.")

Trump's town hall was billed as an appeal to black voters, but Jeffries, who is black, said "Donald Trump has no interest" in appealing to African-American voters, and that the candidate "has attempted to reinvent himself [as someone] who is concerned about the problems of urban American because he is trying to appeal to college educated whites."

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who won the 2013 mayor's race by touting his plan to curb the use of stop-and-frisk, made a rare, unscheduled appearance in the reporter's room at City Hall to attack Trump's plan. "He’s either ignorant of the history of this city or is lying about it" the mayor said.

Trump's proposal to increase the number of stops is out of step with the approach currently being used in New York.

When James O'Neill was sworn in as the city's newest police commissioner on Monday, he spoke about the NYPD "shift" away from "ways that inflamed old wounds, especially among people of color."

"The fact is: Almost all African-American men have felt themselves regarded as threats or criminals – when they walked into a store, when they walked down a street. Those wounds run very deep," he said, adding that the goal now is "distinguish those individuals who are a threat, from those who are not. It is now our mission to not re-inflict those old wounds."

Stephen Davis, the deputy commissioner for public information for the NYPD said the department is "doing it a lot less and we’re seeing significant fewer shootings and violent crimes."

Rev. Michel Faulkner, a black Republican who grew up in Harlem and was raised by a retired police officer, and is now running for mayor, said, the tactic is "only successful" if police and local residents work together. Richard Aborn, the head of the Citizens Crime Commission, told POLITICO New York that "the improper use [of stop-and-frisk] can lead to disastrous results" and that the city is "still reeling from the deep divide that was created between communities of color and the police because of the excessive and Improper use of stop and frisk."

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement that the way the NYPD did stop-and-frisk here "was unconstitutional — it didn’t reduce crime."

Bernie Kerik, who served as Rudy Giuliani's police commissioner in 2000 and 2001, prior to the dramatic rise in stop-and-frisk, defended Trump's broad idea, but said, "I think it has to be monitored. I think it has to be transparent. I think you need good supervision and training and accountability that the program is run correctly."

Data and research shows no clear link between crime and police stops in New York City. and as stops have plummeted in New York City, crime has continued to decrease.

In New York City, the number of stops peaked in 2011 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly, when 685,000 stops were conducted, with most of those targeting black or Hispanic men.

The dramatic increase led to protests and criticism of Bloomberg and Kelly as well as a federal lawsuit, which found the practice violated constitutional rights of people of color.

Even before that decision, stops began to drop dramatically. In the three years, since 2011, stops decreased by 94 percent, to roughly 12,500 over the last three months of 2013, the final months of Bloomberg's administration.

Stops have continued to decline under Mayor Bill de Blasio. There were roughly 4,000 stops in the first three months of 2016.

Data shows that major crime numbers have continued to decline, suggesting no direct connection between the use of police stops and crimes like homicides, shootings and all major index crimes.

Over the four years from 2011 to 2014, as stops decreased, so did homicides. Stops decreased by 97 percent from 2011 to 2015 as homicides decreased by 32 percent, shootings decreased by 25 percent and total major index crimes decreased 1 percent.

Police are allowed to stop a person for questions without violating their Fourth Amendment rights, under the Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio, if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the individual has or is about to commit a crime. And the officer can frisk someone if they have reasonable suspicion that they or someone else is in danger.

-- additional reporting by Gloria Pazmino