NEW YORK: Gay Groups To Denounce NYPD's Stop-And-Frisk Policy

A broad coalition of LGBT groups and others will gather at Manhattan's Stonewall Inn today to jointly denounce the NYPD's racist stop-and-frisk policy.

“We are all standing together against police harassment on the basis of a person’s identity,” Rea Carey, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said in an interview. “There was no rational reason to raid the Stonewall Inn in 1969, and there is no rational reason to stop black and Latino men in 2012 and frisk them simply for being who they are,” she said. The gay rights groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal and the Empire State Pride Agenda, also plan to participate in a march on June 17 to protest the stop-and-frisk practice. The march is being organized by the N.A.A.C.P., the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, and 1199 S.E.I.U., a union of health care workers. In 2011, the police stopped and questioned New Yorkers 684,330 times; 87 percent of those stopped were black or Latino.

The event kicks off at 4pm.