1929 May 23

ACLU Leaders Meet with NYC Police Commissioner, Demand Protection of Civil Liberties

 

ACLU leaders met with New York City Police Commissioner Grover Whalen on this day to protest police misconduct. They cited patterns of indiscriminate searches and seizures, the “round-up of honest citizens,” and violations of the rights of criminal suspects.

The cordial hour-and-a-half meeting ended with the ACLU leaders optimistic that “something is going to be done,” according the ACLU Director Roger Baldwin. Violations of civil liberties, including suppression of free speech, race discrimination, and police brutality, continued for many decades, however.

Police misconduct was rampant in the 1920s and 1930s. The Wickersham Commission, appointed by President Herbert Hoover, issued a report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement on August 10, 1931, which reported that the “Third Degree” was widespread among U.S. police departments.

In the decades ahead, the New York City Police Department would be involved in many controversies. On February 9, 1966 the Police Commissioner opposed the creation of a civilian complaint review board. On October 22, 1971 the NYPD was embroiled in a massive corruption scandal. On June 17, 2012 a Silent March protested the NYPD’s discriminatory stop and frisk program. And on August 12, 2013 a federal judge found the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy violated the Fourth and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Read: Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990)

Read the ACLU FBI File (not the complete file): http://vault.fbi.gov/ACLU

Learn about the ACLU today: www.aclu.org

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