0 by this policy and it being used by the police in a very unjust way. and on so many levels it, you know, restores hope back to the community that, you know, this is unjust and your voice does count. >> khary, i think if you could read one thing about stop and frisk it would be nicholas's op-ed piece. we'll have a link to it on our website tonight. because it is that very important firsthand account of a young man's encounter with these kinds of stops and the evolution of his thinking and what it can do over time in these kinds of large numbers to really sour a community. >> that's absolutely right. i think what nicholas has touched on and why his voice is so powerful in this conversation is a personal experience of what stop and frisk is. over 5 million stops under this present administration. and one of the things you didn't hear today in the press conference from the mayor and from the police commissioner is any type of sympathy, any type of respect for the dignity of young people like nicholas. they are citizens of the city as well. and even if the mayor thinks it's the right crime-fighting procedure, and i agree with the mayor on many issues, but on this one i think he's fundamentally wrong. there has to be an understanding that these are citizens of the city as well, that black and brown men all around the city who experience this issue feel this pain and feel this hurt and that he needs to recognize that and show sympathy to our experience, even if he wants to defend the practice, which i think is indefensible he still as a leader has to understand the morality of the issue and what young men like nicholas go through every single day in the city. >> let's listen to what the mayor said when he said he thinks this is a very dangerous decision, specifically a dangerous decision for new york city. >> this is a very dangerous decision made by a judge that i think just does not understand how policing work and what is compliant with the u.s. constitution as determined by the supreme court. we believe we have done exactly so you have to start with that. then you can have the macroeconomic policy discussion, knowing this is now off the table in its current form, and look at the fact that there are cities that also have seen crime rates decline without this level of racial profiling. that's what it is. that's what the court said. i do want to also say to nicholas, it's an honor to be on a panel with you. what you did and what so many of these plaintiffs did working in this case was obviously put themselves out there, take a risk. it's leadership. it's activism. and i think it's exciting on a day like today to see it paid off. it doesn't always. and when you see the story that is in this filing, i mean now in this ruling that talks about nicholas wearing a hoodie, being stopped for no reason, and a judge saying now, looking at the evidence, that was racial profiling, that has to stop, i think that's an extraordinary message to this city, which has been divided along these racial lines not by ourselves but by many ways by nypd. >> and i think that the hyperbole in that last statement by the mayor is also something that inherently is very, very dangerous. we need to remember that there are over 2,200 murders in 1990. by the time this mayor came into power there were a little over 600. the great decrease in crime happened before he ever stepped into the mayoralty. so to insinuate that if we move away from his practices that blood will run in the streets and this will be a dangerous city again is something i think is inherently very, very dangerous as we come up on a mayoral election, that he's the only one it who can keep the city safe and there are police commissioners and elected officials all across the country who would disagree with that statement and their municipalities have also seen great decrease in crime. so just from a criminologist's perspective the numbers are wrong. and we have to make sure when we talk about this issue that the narrative is true, the narrative is consistent, and the numbers are accurate. >> nicholas, the mayor kept saying today that we run -- the way we run the program is we go where the crime is and that's why we end up with this overwhelming minority population, 80% in the stop and frisks being members of minority populations. what is your response to that? >> well, you don't stop someone who is a law-abiding citizen, who is going to starbucks, who have no intention of committing any types of crime. that's not the way you fight crime. you know, it's completely absurd, and i think it's also important to note these aren't minor inconveniences. these are very hostile situations. and for years it has been downplayed and watered down that, you know, these are minor inconveniences. and i think by the judge ruling in her findings that this is something that's a problem in these communities and it needs to be dealt with in a productive way. >> nicholas, let me just ask you about -- all of your stops that you described in the "new york times" in some real detail, in each one of them they begin and end in a very rude way. and american policing has a very rude edge to it. they feel that everybody they're approaching is criminals and they deserve to be treated rudely. but each time when these police established to their satisfaction that you were not in any way engaged in anything criminal and that the stop and the frisk turned out to be the stopping and the frisking of a law-abiding citizen, did any of these police officers ever leave you feeling okay about it? did they ever say sorry, you know, thanks for cooperating with us, we appreciate it, we do this for your safety and for the community's safety? did they ever leave it in a way that made you think, well, okay, they handled it about the best they could? >> well, i mean, certainly it's going to be uncomfortable with every stop. you know, i'm just a law-abiding citizen. i'm going to the store. i'm doing what everyone else does in my community in a gentrified harlem. what white caucasians do in my neighborhood. and i'm stopped for just very unjust reasons. and i think that, you know, this is -- stop or frisk has become like a form of, you know, social conditioning for a lot of young people in my neighborhood and it certainly needs to stop. >> ari, i was struck by the statistics developed in the case, which indicated you actually cannot support the racial bias in the program with the results that they get. they say that the main thing that they are looking for is weapons, that's their main objective on the frisk. if they find the weapon, that's the gold of the frisk. and yet 1% of the stops of black people produced a weapon. 1.1% of the stops of hispanics produced a weapon. and 1.4% of the stops of white people produced a weapon. therefore, on the police department's own standard, the most suspicious group, the most fertile group for weapons, is white people. >> that's exactly right. and that's why the nypd statistics were so hurtful to them in this case, and it's why they lost on two grounds -- on 14th amendment equal protection grounds, which have to do with disparate treatment by race. and on the broad fourth amendment on reasonable search grounds. and lawrence, to your point, what does it teach us? number one, it teaches us that this program is very bad at finding weapons. let's recall that the judicial standard that's mandated under the law, even under this lower rule, which is stop and frisk as compared to a traditional search, is still that you have some real cognizable suspicion there's a weapon there. that suspicion shouldn't lead to you 1 out of 100. and secondly, that teaches you that what was actually going on was a type of racial profiling. and that's where this fight's going to go. if bloomberg is going to go and we're having these discussions around the country and congress as we've discussed is thinking about banning racial profiling, mayor bloomberg pulled off a neat trick in getting everyone to call this stop and frisk. today the court called it what it is, which is racial profiling. >> khary, quickly before we go, i want to get your reaction to what eric holder announced today. >> you know, my reaction is that it's a small step in the right direction. as we know, there's a problem with mass incarceration in this country, nearly 2.3 million people incarcerated. less than 10% are in the federal system. so this is only kind of the tip of the iceberg, number one. but it's an example of what can be done to get around the mandatory minimums. the second issue is that unfortunately i think it is also too late. i mean, attorney general holder has been in a position to do this for over four years. and so i appreciate the step now, but i don't think that the congratulations should be that intense because there's a lot more that could have been done, a lot more that should have been done. i'm happy the step was taken. but to really deal with 2.3 million people incarcerated we need to move much, much faster. >> cary lazarre-white, thank you. ari melber, thank you. nicholas peart, thank you, and congratulations for your participation in this historic case. >> thank you. coming up, north carolina's governor signed the state's new voter suppression bill into law today. and what does it take for a rodeo clown to get banned for life from the missouri state fair? we will show you that video. and the jury has spoken today in the boston trial of whitey bulger and time for the media to start rewriting their image of whitey bulger. that's in tonight's rewrite. nobody insures more bikes than progressive. do you guys ride? well... no. sometimes, yeah. yes. well, if you know anybody else who also rides, send them here -- we got great coverage. it's not like bikers love their bikes more than life itself. i doubt anyone will even notice. leading the pack in motorcycle insurance. now, that's progressive. call or click today. aarrggh!