Council Speaker Christine Quinn said she would not support legislation to ban cops from racial profiling, worrying that it could lead to overwhelming lawsuits.

Quinn’s remarks were part of a speech this afternoon outlining public-safety proposals at Hunter College.

During the speech, she said she still supports the controversial idea of an inspector general for the NYPD, someone to independently evaluate the department’s actions.

But she said she would not support another proposal, which would create an enforceable ban on racial profiling. She said legal remedies already exist to combat the practice.

Other Council members were quick to criticize Quinn, arguing that data from police actions like stop-and-frisk show cops overwhelmingly stop minorities.

“There is strong reason to be concerned that the NYPD is engaging in bias-based policing,” Councilmen Jumaane Williams and Brad Landers said in a joint statement.

The NAACP also released a series of criticisms.

“No other city in the United States has implemented racial profiling policies on as wide a scale, or taken it to such destructive levels as Commissioner Kelly’s NYPD,” NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous said.

Among Quinn’s other proposals were hiring 1,600 more cops and bumping up the next police class’s graduation to July, from January 2014.

Sanitation workers and transit workers should be trained in counterterrorism, she said. Together, 40,000 in these positions work underground and on city streets daily.

She also wants to fund 1,000 new security cameras, bringing the total to 7,000 in the five boroughs.

A proposed ‘panic app’

Quinn, who is running for mayor, suggested a panic-button app that New Yorkers could use to summon cops with the touch of a finger.

She envisions a smartphone app that would allow people to request assistance from a nearby cop in situations where it would be impossible to call 911.

Cops could locate the crime victim using GPS, she said, and this could save live.

And cops themselves should have smartphones, she said, to immediately pull up previous arrest info or outstanding warrants.

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Protests in East Flatbush last week stemming from the shooting of 16-year-old Kimani Gray by police officers on March 9 grew steadily calmer as the week wore on, after an explosion of violence on Wednesday night resulted in 45 arrests and one police officer injured.

City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who had come under fire for comments made accusing “outsiders” of inciting unprepared teens to violence, was able to direct a fair number of the protesters on Friday night into a nearby church for a community discussion, though a group did split off to march on to the police precinct, where someone eventually threw a bottle at police before the crowd dispersed.

Reports of a successful Youth Empowerment Seminar on Saturday preceded another night of protests. This time, on-scene reports indicated police vastly outnumbered protesters by a factor of nearly three-to-one.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week said he was not going to go out to East Flatbush because he didn’t want to “inflame things” but that he had “reached out to clergy and officials.”

He said he was planning on calling the mother of the deceased boy, but as of Sunday had still not made the call.

The mayor’s office did not respond to inquiries as to when the mayor was planning to call Mrs. Gray.

Conflicting reports of her son’s involvement in gangs have piled up, from Mrs. Gray herself telling WNYC she doesn’t think her son would ever carry a gun, but wasn’t sure, to reports from the NY Post of Facebook photos where Kimani Gray is making gang signs with his hands or videos in which he taunts a “young rival Crip.”

Experts on city gangs dismissed the Facebook and YouTube activity as amateur, and indications that Kimani’s gang involvement would have been extremely low-level; while teachers and neighbors spoke of a young man who “acted tough” but was serious about becoming an accountant and moving his family into a better neighborhood.

The principal at Kimani’s school in Manhattan said they “believed in his potential from the day he entered [the] school.”

“He traveled over an hour each day from East Flatbush… The year and a half we had with Kimani allowed us to get to know his best self,” Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction principal Matt Willoughby said.

Hit hard by loss of brother

Gray’s mother also talked about the effect her eldest son’s death two years ago had on Kimani: the older boy had apparently been a father figure to his younger sibling, and instrumental in keeping him in school and off the streets.

After his death, Kimani started staying out late because, he told her, he had nothing to come home to.

At the same time, the Grays had been displaced from their home and were reportedly living five-to-one-room in her brother’s apartment. They had finally moved into a new home a few days before Gray was shot by police. His mother said when she showed him the keys to the new house, he was so excited he “jumped as high as to the ceiling and said, ‘yes, we’re finally out of here!’”

The officers involved

The cops who shot Gray were identified last week as Sergeant Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova.

According to NY1, one officer was involved in two prior lawsuits for alleged civil rights violations, and the other faced three similar lawsuits.

Some of those cases reportedly involved stop-and-frisk incidents, and city officials reportedly opted to pay settlements in all five cases.

City officials insisted that settlements do not indicate an acknowledgement of any wrong-doing, and that involvement in lawsuits do not necessarily indicate guilt.

A major stop-and-frisk lawsuit against the city commences Monday morning.

Community calls for experience and cultural sensitivity from police

Last week, members of the community suggested that a problem with the police force in the area is that they are often young and inexperienced: NYPD policy frequently places rookie cops in the worst areas of the city.

NYPD officials have previously said that the purpose of the Impact Program is to allow rookies to get important experience quickly.

In the case of the Kimani Gray shooting, Mourad was an 8-year veteran on the force, and Cordova had five years.

But community organizers maintained the point that more training is needed, and specific training, as repeated calls were made for cultural sensitivity by police officers when operating within the community.

 Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Following a third night of unrest during what was meant to be a vigil for 16-year-old Kimani Gray, shot by cops last weekend after reportedly pointing a .38 caliber gun at them, local City Councilman Jumaane Williams held another press conference Thursday afternoon with other community leaders, asking the public to respect the wishes of Gray’s family and maintain peaceful protests and marches, but abstain from further violence.

After repeated calls via Twitter at the height of last night’s violence for outsiders to leave the community alone, Councilman Jumaane Williams again requested that “outsiders” abstain from rallying youth to action without proper training and strategy, but said that he believes those outsiders are well-intentioned, and welcomed them.

“I think they’re concerned and want to help,” Williams said. “I just want to make sure that our young people’s anger is channeled productively.”

“We want you, but be constructive; don’t endanger our kids,” he added.

Williams refused to identify who he sees as “outsiders,” asserting that doing so would be counterproductive. He also asked that the community withhold comment on either side until a thorough investigation has been completed.

The sisters of Shantal Davis, an unarmed woman killed by police last June, spoke as well, urging the community to attend meetings they hold on Monday at 39th Street and Church Avenue.

Other speakers mentioned Williams’ efforts to find a location in the neighborhood to establish a community center.

Gray’s father stood by Councilman Williams, but chose not to speak. Speaking on his behalf, Williams told the crowd the elder Gray was “not happy with the violence occurring,” but wanted peaceful, organized marches and protests.

A man who identified himself as a former member of the Bloods gang said he came from “the same thing Kimani came from.”

He called the police murderers, noting that Gray was shot three times in the back.

According to the autopsy report, Gray was shot a total of seven times. Three shots were to his back.

The repeated theme, from clergy, community members, and elected representatives, was that action was needed, but it must be organized. Williams lamented the handful of youth who “unknowingly violated parole last night,” using this as an example of the negative consequences of inciting youth to action without properly informing them of consequences.

As the crowd disbanded, a young man began to shout at nearby police, calling them “occupiers.”

“This is Palestine!” the young man cried. “And last night was Syria!”

 Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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