A group of students in the Bronx is calling for a formal investigation of the NYPD, as they say officers have shown a pattern of racist practices.  

These students, including members of the Black Opportunities Youth Coalition, want the Biden administration and the federal Department of Justice to get involved.  

"We need the federal government to come in here and say that the constitutional rights of these kids of these people in Bronx, in Brooklyn are being violated,” said Hawk Newsome, co-founder of the Black Opportunities Coalition.  

This comes two days after one of the coalition’s youth leaders, Naheeme Sophas, says he was stopped and frisked by four white police officers who were in an unmarked vehicle. He says this took place on his way back from a basketball game at Dyckman Park, on the same day where he attended the National Night Out event hosted by the NYPD.  

Sophas says the officers yelled from the vehicle to ask what was in his bag, and when he replied that nothing was in the bag several times, they got out of the car and approached him.  

“All officers in that unmarked car but they were all in officer's uniforms, they all had their hands on their guns walking out approaching me,” said Sophas.  

Sophas is an honor roll student-athlete who practices activism against violence and says he genuinely feared for his life in that moment.