Weeks after 17-year-old Naheeme Sophas was stopped on West Burnside Avenue and his bag searched by an NYPD officer, he’s still wondering why he was targeted.
Sophas, who is Black, called the incident — his first personal encounter with police — “traumatizing.”
But he and his peers sprung into action, holding a live press conference two days after the Aug. 1 incident and writing a letter to the president and U.S. attorney general to investigate NYPD stop and search practices.
Two of Sophas’ 17-year-old colleagues wrote in the letter, “We all want safe streets, but they shouldn’t be at the expense of Black and Brown American citizens who are innocent.”
Cell phone video of the encounter shows that based on the uniform of the officer who stopped Sophas, he was most likely dealing with a member of of the NYPD Neighborhood Safety Team who drive unmarked cars and wear black uniforms with “NYPD Police” in white lettering.
Neighborhood Safety Teams, created under Mayor Eric Adams, are highly trained officers tasked with conducting stops and searches with the aim of preventing gun violence. But these teams — a recent iteration of the NYPD’s Anti-Crime team, a controversial plainclothes unit disbanded by former mayor Bill de Blasio following the 2020 George Floyd protests — have recently come under scrutiny for what some are calling overzealous, unconstitutional enforcement.
A June federal monitor report stated that Black and brown young men are disproportionately subjected to unlawful stops and searches — meaning there was no reasonable suspicion that the person was involved in criminal activity — by the Neighborhood Safety Teams.
Specifically, Black males accounted for almost 66% of the stops reviewed in the report — although the Black population in the Bronx stands at only 28% and just 24% citywide. A combined 90% of those stopped, according to the report, were Black and Hispanic males — with the majority under age 30.
But Adams and former police commissioner Keechant Sewell disputed the findings of the report, with Sewell maintaining that the rate of unlawful stops was actually much lower.
“I feared for my life”
Sophas, who attends the Bronx Academy for Software Engineering in the Belmont neighborhood, described being searched by the police — in a manner he claims was unlawful — in an interview with the Bronx Times.
On Aug. 1, he and three friends were walking on West Burnside and Jerome avenues around 10:30 p.m. They were leaving a basketball game when Sophas realized they were being followed in an unmarked car.
“I wouldn’t think that I’d be stopped by the police because I’m a normal person. I have no priors,” he said.
According to Sophas, the car stopped, and an officer asked Sophas twice what was in his black fanny pack. He repeated, “I don’t got nothing.”
When the officer asked a third time, Sophas said he replied, “I don’t have to tell you what’s in my bag” and “I know my rights.”
But then, according to Sophas, the officer got out of the car — along with three others — all with hands on their weapons.
At that point, “I feared for my life,” Sophas said.
Sophas decided to hand over the bag. “I just took it off and let him violate my rights. I allowed him to violate my rights [rather] than to take my life,” he said.
The NYPD did not respond to email request for comment, and the officer in question could not be identified.
Feeling “targeted”
One of Sophas’ friends had started recording on his cell phone when the officers got out of the car and later provided the footage to Sophas. Part of the video was later televised on news outlets during a press conference with Sophas and his summer employer, the nonprofit Black Opportunities.
According to Sophas, the officer never gave a reason for the stop and found only a phone, charger wallet and keys in the bag. The officers did not touch Sophas or search his clothing, he told the Bronx Times.
Sophas said the officer had his body camera on, but he didn’t get a name or badge number during the incident.
Weeks later, he was still wondering why the group was stopped and why officers questioned only him.
“It felt targeted,” Shophas said, because none of his friends were questioned or searched, even though one of them carried a similar black bag.
He told the Bronx Times that while his family has faced major financial hardships, he has managed to stay on the straight and narrow as a peer leader and a “high-GPA” student who has never drank or smoked, let alone committed a crime.
“I knew that I need to stick to this side of life,” Sophas said.
Sophas said that while he has “no hard proof” of the officer’s intent, he believes his dark complexion — darker than the rest of his friends — may have played a role.
He also suspects that his all-black outfit — which included a shirt with a large wolf logo representing Black Opportunities — may have attracted unwanted attention.
Black Opportunities has employed Sophas for two summers and is known for using the press and social media to protest NYPD conduct, Mayor Adams’ approach to crime and other issues. According to its website, its mission is to “liberate Black people from oppression” and “to prepare and train Black people to defend our communities.”
Siblings Hawk Newsome and Chivona Newsome, native Bronxites and controversial co-founders of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, created the Black Opportunities Summer Wolf program following the 2020 killing of George Floyd.
Hawk Newsome told the Bronx Times that Black Opportunities employs a bottom-up strategy focused on education and empowerment. “It’s giving these kids skills to destroy white supremacy,” he said.
Of the cohort this summer, both leaders agreed it was a “special group” made up almost entirely of honor students.
“They know how to mobilize,” especially via social media, Hawk Newsome said.
Mickesha Wong and Valery Martinez, both 17, worked closely with Sophas throughout the Black Opportunities summer program. After his experience, they put their anger into writing, collaborating on a letter to President Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The letter does not specifically mention Sophas’ story. Instead, the students used data to highlight the disproportionate effect of unlawful stops on Black and brown New Yorkers. The letter also calls out Mayor Eric Adams for what they view as hypocrisy on the issue.
The students said the letter came easily. “It hits differently knowing [an unlawful stop] can happen to literally anyone we know,” said Wong.
Their goal is to spur a Department of Justice investigation into NYPD practices and to ultimately end unconstitutional stops and searches.
“Once that happens, hopefully I can get some justice,” Sophas said.
Reach Emily Swanson at emily.swanson63@journalism.cuny.edu. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
