Actor and former Obama administration aide Kal Penn surprised most of his Twitter followers Tuesday when he strongly defended New York City’s Stop and Frisk policy. Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that the policy violated the constitutional rights of the city’s minority populations and called for a federal monitor to oversee reforms.

Penn’s views also put him at odds with Attorney General Eric Holder, who filed a brief in support of the case against the NYPD.

We’ve saved Penn’s tweets and some of the outraged responses below.

Great op/ed by @MikeBloomberg on the merits of "stop-question-frisk". http://t.co/QVeGVqlNDF — Kal Penn (@kalpenn) August 13, 2013

@Only4RM nope. It's a good policy. Sad to see such activist judges ruling against public safety — Kal Penn (@kalpenn) August 13, 2013

@CWmsWrites lol well already been a victim of violent crime. It's a sound policy and we need to stop trying to get rid of it — Kal Penn (@kalpenn) August 13, 2013

@CWmsWrites and who, sadly, commits & are victims of the most crimes? — Kal Penn (@kalpenn) August 13, 2013

.@kalpenn That is the same BS argument racists use to justify why the TSA should only hassle brown folks at airports. — DigitalBridget (@BridgetMarie) August 13, 2013

@kalpenn seriously? You're gonna back stop & frisk with "black people commit most crimes"? — Anil Dash (@anildash) August 14, 2013

@kalpenn Please read into the #StopAndFrisk stats. Bloomberg is a smart guy, but he's wrong. read the judge http://t.co/KQ13SVWrn8 — Baratunde (@baratunde) August 14, 2013

The "activist judge" comment was kind of weird. Right? Still holding out a smidgen of hope for a hack. — Grace (@graceishuman) August 14, 2013

Gosh. Get @kalpenn and educate him. — Roxane Gay (@rgay) August 14, 2013

You mocked this in a movie. Remember? RT @kalpenn Great op/ed by @MikeBloomberg on merits of "stop-question-frisk". http://t.co/8nvADaCVgb — nicole brett (@nicolebrett) August 14, 2013

Good thing Kal Penn's politics don't detract from my love of The Namesake. Irrfan Khan and Tabu owned that film, anyway. — stacia l. brown (@slb79) August 14, 2013

Kal Penn, huh? Hmmm, okay. — XanxiuZ (@XanxiuZ) August 14, 2013

Lakshmi Gandhi is a co-founder and editor of The Aerogram. Follow her on Twitter at @LakshmiGandhi or email her at editors@theaerogram.com.