If you have been aware of the push to end New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy and you still have misgivings about whether the practice truly has a disproportionate and damaging effect on the city’s Black and Latino residents, consider Tyquan Brehon, the New York teen who says he was unduly stopped by police more than 60 times before reaching the age of 18.

A New York Times-produced short documentary focuses on Brehon, using his story as a cautionary example of how stop-and-frisk practically affects the lives of the citizens who must live under the policy. The New York Times writes:

“Last year, police officers in New York City stopped and frisked people 685,724 times. Eighty-seven percent of those searches involved blacks or Latinos, many of them young men, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The practice of stop-and-frisk has become increasingly controversial, but what is often absent from the debate are the voices of young people affected by such aggressive policing on a daily basis. To better understand the human impact of this practice, we made this film about Tyquan Brehon, a young man who lives in one of the most heavily policed neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

By his count, before his 18th birthday, he had been unjustifiably stopped by the police more than 60 times. On several occasions, merely because he asked why he had been stopped, he was handcuffed, placed in a cell and detained for hours before being released without charges. These experiences were scarring; Mr. Brehon did whatever he could to avoid the police, often feeling as if he were a prisoner in his home.”

Read the full story here.

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(Photo: Via Global Grind)