People protested. People marched. A good cop who blew the whistle ended up thrown in a mental hospital. Mayor Bloomberg refused to back down. Civil liberties and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit. The stop-and-frisk numbers started falling, finally, while the lawsuit moved forward. The judge then ruled the program unconstitutional. The next mayoral campaign turned on one candidate’s vocal rejection of stop-and-frisk. The good guys won. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that activism doesn’t matter.
