Black Women Speak About Their Experiences with Police Harassment in New York

In 2012, Crystal Pope and two of her friends were stopped and frisked by male NYPD officers. The 25-year-old mother of two, told Fusion she felt violated during the stop-and-frisk. ”We felt really powerless. It was overwhelming. It was degrading.” The police, she says, were searching the area for a male rapist. The officers overstepped their boundaries.




Black women are stopped by the NYPD almost as often as Black men are. This fact is one that is widely unknown. The #SayHerName report and initiative by the African American Policy Forum aims to give this stat and others about Black women and girls light.

Photo: Fusion

Hear more about Pope’s story and the story of 23-year-old Shantel Davis—who died at the hands of police in 2012—in the video by Fusion below.



Photo: YouTube

Deonna Anderson is Junior Editor at For Harriet. Follow her on Twitter @iamDEONNA.

Black women police brutality stop-and-frisk violence