US police racism on blacks hits limits

An NYT survey shows the majority of New Yorkers believes the New York Police Department (NYPD) discriminates against blacks and have criticized the city's controversial stop-and-frisk policy.

The survey, released by the New York Times on Tuesday, found that 64 percent of New Yorkers confirm the existence of the discriminatory trend.

A significant majority of the black respondents said that the government's notorious stop-and-frisk tactic harasses innocent people.

According to the results, 48 percent of New Yorkers considered stopping people "acceptable," while almost 45 percent said it was "excessive." Results also indicated that 56 percent of blacks find the policy extreme.

Local press reports revealed that, in 2011, the police made as many as 700,000 stops, about 85 percent of which involved mostly black and Hispanic young men, up from about 97,000 a decade earlier.