Reverend Al Sharpton at the march to end stop and frisk.

Among the thousands who turned out to march down Fifth Avenue in protest of the NYPD's stop and frisk policy Sunday were several prominent political opponents of the practice, which saw police stop over 685,000 people, the vast majority of whom were people of color, while collecting 780 guns. Likely candidates in next year's mayoral election have focused on reforming some elements of the controversial policy, but many of the leaders who participated in the march explained to The Politicker that they want stop and frisk ended entirely.

"I don't know how you can keep it and take the quotas and the profiling out of it and, therefore, I think they need an entirely new program. I don't know how you mend something based on quotas and race," said Reverend Al Sharpton, one of the organizers of the march.

The NYPD has consistently denied quotas or racial profiling play a role in the policy, though a record number of citizens were stopped last year. According to the NYCLU 88 percent of the people stopped last year were totally innocent and 87 percent were black or Latino.

Mr. Sharpton has not yet decided who to back in the mayoral race, but he said the candidates' positions on stop and frisk would figure prominently in his decision.

"A lot of what we support will be based on this and other issues," he said.

Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams, who has been an outspoken critic of the policy, said he believes many of the mayoral candidates need to "stay with the pack" and that "some have been much stronger than others" on this issue, though he declined to name names.

"This issue of reform on stop and frisk is kind of a misnomer, because inherent in a police officer's job is their ability to stop someone if they feel there's reasonable suspicion to do so. Nobody wants to take that away ,what we want to take away are the abuses and the racial profiling," said Mr. Williams. "Call it however you want, the current policy needs to end. You call it reform, you can call it an end. What I'm saying is, the way the police are doing business, the way people are stopping people just because they are black or latino is what needs to stop. So, I'm not going to get caught up in who's saying what as long as theyre saying this behavior, this policy as it currently exists needs to end."

Earlier this month, Mr. Williams was part of a delegation of City elected officials who traveled down to Washington D.C. to bring their concerns about stop and frisk to Congress and the Department of Justice. Sources told The Politicker Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his interest in conducting an investigation during a meeting with members of the delegation. Mr. Williams said he was confident the DOJ would take action on the issue in spite of the controversies currently surrounding the department.

"I think the Department of Justice seemed to be very interested in doing something, we were discussing what that something would be," he said. "I'm hoping they'll kind of honor what they said and follow up with us and I have no reason to believe that they won't."

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who is running for Congress in Brooklyn's 8th district echoed the sentiment racial profiling is the main problem with the current stop and frisk policy.

"The Supreme Court has said that stop and frisk is constitutional, the question that we face here in New York is having it conducted in a manner that complies with the law," said Mr. Jeffries. "Many of us believe that stop and frisk as it's implemented consistently violates the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution. It completely inappropriately subjects large communities to racial profiling and leads to the persistent violation of civil rights and civil liberties. That's the problem with stop and frisk as it currently exists."

Mr. Jeffries also said he believes a potential solution lies with the Department of Justice.

"The Department of Justice needs to step in and conduct a patterns and practices inquiry, even if it's preliminary in nature, to evaluate whether the NYPD is engaging in consistent violations of the civil rights and civil liberties of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers every year," Mr. Jeffries said. "I think the Justice Department is in a strong pos to do so. The Office of Civil Rights is charged with conducting inquiries into civil rights violations allegedly occurring as a result of police department behavior. The Department of Justice has conducted such police inquiries in Detroit, Newark, San Juan and other cities across the country. They should come into New York City.

Comptroller John Liu is the only major likely mayoral candidate who has called for the stop and frisk policy to be ended altogether. He declined to answer when we asked why he thought the other probable candidates don't share his position.

"That's a question you have to ask them," he said. "The stop and frisk tactic, it just doesn't make sense in a democratic society, that nearly a tenth of the population will be stopped and frisked, almost all of whom have done nothing wrong. And because almost all the people that are being stopped and frisked are people of color, this is racial profiling and racial profiling's not accepted even by the NYPD."

Mayor Bloomberg and the police department have continually said the stop and frisk policy is one of the factors behind the declining crime rate in New York. Mr. Liu disputes the notion stop and frisk makes the City safer.

"It's a tactic that has created huge divisions between communities and the police, thus making it unsafe for everybody. The numbers don't really show any significant reductions in murder or signifcant increases in numbers of guns being taken off the streets," said Mr. Liu. "It's causing great pain and humiliation for too many people. Other cities have seen significant reductions in crime without employing these kinds of stop and frisk tactics. Let's figure out what they're doing and bring those strategies to New York City."

For his part, Mr. Sharpton also took note of the fact Rodney King, whose 1991 beating at the hands of the LAPD sparked the Los Angeles riots, died on the same day as the march against stop and frisk.

"I worked with Rodney King in '92. I marched for him and about four weeks ago, he came to New York, did my radio show and my television show," Mr. Sharpton said. "We talked a lot about how things were done then and I think it's ironic on a day that we raise a question of police abuse is the day we lost Rodney."

An Occupy Wall Street demonstrator wearing a Guy Fawkes mask in Zuccotti Park last year. (Getty)

Several Council members held a rally along with several members of the Occupy Wall Street movement to call attention to allegedly excessive force used by police who cleared crowds at the Occupy protest in Zuccotti Park Saturday night. Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who has been a staunch supporter of the Occupy movement and claims he was the victim of excessive police force when he was arrested during the eviction of the protest from Zuccotti Park last November, said there will be a massive "Day of Action" for Occupy next Saturday, that he is working on a bill to establish a "protester's Bill of Rights" and that he plans to push Christine Quinn to hold a hearing reviewing the NYPD's handling of the occupiers.

"I am here today because, on Saturday night, I saw the NYPD using brutal excessive force arresting peaceful people that had gathered in this park," Mr. Rodriguez said. "More than 1,000 people came here to celebrate our sixth month anniversary in a peacful way, saying Occupy is here, Occupy is alive, Occupy will not leave."

Approximately 20 people were arrested Saturday. After being evicted from the park in November, Occupy Wall Street seemingly lost steam through the winter, however, the group's organizers promise the movement will be resurgent this spring and are planning a large "general strike" May 1 in addition to Saturday's events.

Councilman Rodriguez was joined at the press conference by fellow Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Jumaane Williams, who were both arrested while conducting civil disobedience in support of Occupy Wall Street last November, and Councilman Stephen Levin. Mr. Williams argued the protesters had a legal right to be in Zuccotti Park Saturday night.

"I want to make sure that the mayor, that the commissioner, that the whole world hears that we are still here," Mr. Williams said. "The problem I have is, we need to understand the Occupy Wall Street movement are not terrorists, they are not enemies of the state. Why are the police treating them as such?"

Zuccotti Park is a privately owned public space. The public is allowed to access the park 24 hours a day as long as they do not sleep there or erect structures. Mr. Williams said he attended Saturday's protest and witnessed no demonstrators breaking park rules.

"This park is a public private partnership. As a part of that agreement, it has to remain open for 24 hours a day," Mr. Williams said. "There were no sleeping bags that I saw, there were no tents that I saw, and if there were, you have to give people an opportunity to cure a nuisance when you see it. ... In absence of a public safety issue, why did the police start an aggression that they knew would result in people getting injured?"

Mr. Williams doesn't believe there are legitimate legal or public safety concerns behind the removal of Occupy Wall Street protesters, but he presented his own theory behind the evictions. Mr. Williams believes the police and the mayor want to keep Occupy Wall Street out of Zuccotti Park because they oppose the movement's message.

"What this is about, and let's be clear, is the suppression of dissent," Mr. Williams said. "The mayor, as he calls his personal, private army, is using the NYPD to suppress and crush any kind of dissent or speaking."

Mr. Williams said it is "lazy" of the Bloomberg administration to repeatedly remove the protesters rather than addressing their reasons for demonstrating.

"This movement still has a message, the message is still 100 percent the same; the inequality in this nation, in this city is reprehensible," Mr. Williams said. "We have a lazy administration and police department in Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly. Instead of choosing to deal with the problem and figuring out how we can fix the issues that Occupy Wall Street is doing and talking about, they come to bash heads."

After Mr. Williams spoke, Mr. Rodriguez introduced Occupy organizer Aaron Black, who he described as "one of the leaders" of the movement.

"We don't have any leaders here. There are no leaders at Occupy Wall Street," Mr. Black said. "We started a conversation and we want to continue that conversation. We've managed to change that conversation, and for some reason, we keep getting our heads beat in. I'd like to know why."

Mr. Black was followed by a tearful young woman named Liesbeth Rapp who said she witnessed protesters being "pushed over and stampeded" by the police.

"I saw a girl laying in the street, she had been experiencing seizures and convulsing, her head was unprotected on the concrete," Ms. Rapp said. "She was surrounded by over 100 police officers. Two EMT's were standing there and wanted to examine the woman, but they were denied access, despite carrying certification, by the NYPD."

Ms. Rapp did not seem to have been injured herself, but a subsequent speaker, Bill Livsey, showed off a large bruise on his arm.

"The injury that is sustained on Saturday night is minor, minor compared to some of my fellow protesters who are not standing here right now because they are either in the hospital or still in jail," said Mr. Livsey, who identified himself as a "musician and activist." "This injury was sutained when the NYPD came in, there was one police officer who took one hand of mine to pull me up and the other police officer began batoning my left arm."

The elected officials and occupiers were joined by New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, who reiterated a call made by some Council members for the establishment of an Inspector General to monitor the NYPD.

"The NYPD is out of control and this is the latest in a steady stream of scandals and abuses; the surveillance, the blanket surveillance of the Muslim community, stop and frisks of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers, the killing of Ramarley Graham and last fall's attacks on Occupy Wall Street, Ms. Lieberman said. "It is time to hold the NYPD accountable. It's time for New York City to establish an Inspector General's office. The NYPD is watching everybody else, but who's watching the NYPD?"

Councilwoman Mark-Viverito spoke out to express her support for Occupy Wall Street.

"Occupy Wall Street and this movement is a reality in New York City. It is a reality that continues to grow and will continue to be a presence in this city," she said. "They are speaking out with courage against a disparity that exists and I support that movement."

Occupy Wall Street is getting some support in Washington as well as support from the City Council. Last December, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes Zuccotti Park, called for a federal investigation into police conduct during the raid on Occupy Wall Street. As a response to Saturday's events, Mr. Nadler issued a statement reiterating his call for an Occupy investigation.

"I am disturbed yet again by allegations of police misconduct and excessive force used against Occupy Wall Street protesters during this weekend’s demonstrations at Zuccotti Park. Our law enforcement officers are charged with protecting our health and safety, but that duty must always be carried out with respect for the fundamental First Amendment rights to free expression and peaceful assembly," Mr. Nadler said. "Once again, I call on Attorney General Holder to launch a thorough investigation into law enforcement activities surrounding Occupy Wall Street – and its national offshoots – to determine whether the police have indeed violated the civil liberties of demonstrators or members of the media."