I’ve only been in New York City for a month, but I’ve already been introduced to the New York Police Department and the legacy of Rudy Giuliani. On my way home from a local Thai restaurant, toothpick in mouth, I was grabbed from behind. A man spun me around and pushed me up against the brick wall of my local drug store. He flashed his NYPD badge and identified himself as a police officer.

Two uniformed officers rushed out of their nearby car to give their plain-clothed associate some back up. The cop accused me of smoking marijuana before proceeding to search my pockets and frisk me from head to toe. He smelt my fingers for good measure. After finding nothing, he made no apology, just a couple of grunts.

According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the “stop-and-frisk” is a widely used NYPD practice that received the support and encouragement of former Mayor Giuliani in his crusade against crime. However, “white” people like me are not usually the target of the random checks carried out by the Street Crime Unit (SCU).

Introduced in 1997, during the heart of Giuliani’s rule, the NYPD’s “Strategy ’97 —Goal Oriented Neighborhood Policing” beefed up the SCU and emboldened their guerilla style policing. In Manhattan, NYPD units produced 28,359 (20.3 per cent) stop and frisk reports in 1998. Reports contain the name, address and description of the person stopped regardless of whether they were charged for an offence.

Of these reports, approximately 48.6 per cent of those citizens stopped were classified as black, 37.4 per cent as Hispanic, 11.6 per cent as white, and two per cent as Asian. The population of Manhattan is approximately 41.9 per cent white, 26.7 per cent black, 20.5 per cent Hispanic, and 10.3 per cent Asian. The statistics for the other four boroughs are equally disturbing. Nonetheless, the NYPD continues to claim that racial profiling is not police policy.

Giuliani’s terms in office, and his “zero-tolerance” approach to crime, heightened racial tension and the relationship between the NYPD and communities of colour has been left in serious disrepair. The 1999 fatal shooting of an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, by four white SCU officers during an attempted “stop-and-frisk” triggered massive demonstrations and calls for the dismantling of the infamous unit. The only African-American woman in the SCU publicly stated that racial profiling in the unit’s operations was standard practice; the officer was subsequently fired by the NYPD. The NYPD claims that it dismantled the SCU in 2002. Whatever its status, the Street Crime Unit’s practices appear to be alive and well.

Chances are thousands more New Yorkers, and overwhelmingly people of colour, will be subject to a “stop-and-frisk.” Some, like me, will walk away from the ordeal relatively unscathed, their civil liberties offended. Others may not be so lucky. In today’s New York, Giuliani may be gone, but his legacy lives on.