Tempers flared on April 19 as Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin (See Profile) demanded that the New York City Law Department produce two police officers for identification by a black plaintiff who claims he was stopped, questioned and frisked on the steps of his Staten Island home without reasonable suspicion.
Leroy Downs, testifying at the end of the fifth week of the litigation challenging the constitutionality of New York City Police Department’s practice of stopping hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers every year, said that on the night of Aug. 20, 2008, he was sitting on his front steps talking on a cell phone when two plainclothes officers got out of a Crown Victoria.
