A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a judge's order requiring changes to a New York Police Department stop-and-search tactic that has been widely criticized by rights advocates as targeting black and Hispanic men. The stops reached an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330. 
 
 FILE- In this Friday, May 17, 2013, file photo, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin is interviewed in her federal court chambers, in New York. On Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, a New York federal appeals... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2013 file photo, police officers walk through the Brownsville Houses the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. A federal appeals court on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, blocked... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2013 file photo, police officers take a report from a woman who had her phone stolen in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. A federal appeals court on Thursday, Oct.... (Associated Press) 
 
 The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also took the unusual step of removing Judge Shira Scheindlin from the case, saying interviews she gave during the trial responding to criticism of the court called her impartiality into question. 
 
 Scheindlin ruled in August that the city violated the Constitution in the way it carried out its program of stopping and questioning people. She ruled that police in America's largest city violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of people by wrongly targeting black and Hispanic men. 
 
 The issue has attracted national interest. Students at Brown University in Rhode Island this week shouted down Police Commissioner Ray Kelly when he tried to give a speech about the so-called stop-and-frisk practice there. 
 
 Scheindlin also appointed an outside monitor to oversee major changes and ordered a pilot program to test body-worn cameras in some areas where most stops occur. She noted she wasn't ending the practice, which is constitutional, but was reforming the way the NYPD implemented its stops. 
 
 The city appealed her findings and her orders to change the program. The appeals court said her rulings will be stayed pending the outcome of the city's appeal. 
 
 The front-runner in next week's mayoral election, Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio, said he was "extremely disappointed" in Thursday's decision. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented plaintiffs in the case, said it was shocked that the appeals court "cast aspersions" on the judge's professional conduct and reassigned the case. 
 
 Stop-and-frisk has been around for decades in some form, but recorded stops increased dramatically under the administration of current Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A lawsuit was filed in 2004 by four men and became a class action case. 
 
 The city has said police officers are afraid to stop and frisk people now and the number of stop-and-frisks has dropped dramatically. 
 
 Opponents of changes to the stop-and-frisk program say they would lower police morale but not crime. 
 
 About 5 million stops have been made in New York in the past decade, with frisks, or searches, occurring about half the time. To make a stop, police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to occur or has occurred. Only about 10 percent of the stops result in arrests or summonses, and weapons are found about 2 percent of the time. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister contributed. ||||| An appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Thursday to Manhattan federal Judge Shira Scheindlin — unanimously booting her from cases involving stop-and-frisk, calling into question her impartiality and saying she “ran afoul” of judicial ethics. 
 
 In a ruling that put a series of NYPD reforms she mandated on hold, a three-judge panel at the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals said Scheindlin violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges by failing to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities” and by failing to disqualify herself “in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” 
 
 The judges faulted Scheindlin for granting a series of media interviews in May while overseeing a nonjury trial over the NYPD’s use of the tactic, which she later ruled unconstitutional. 
 
 At the time, an editorial in The Post blasted Scheindlin for making public comments “that skate so close to the issues involved.” 
 
 “From the start of this trial, she hasn’t been shy about letting the city know how dubious she is about police judgment,” it read. 
 
 In their ruling, the three judges also said “the appearance of impartiality surrounding this litigation was compromised” when Scheindlin invited lawyers to file suit against stop-and-frisk and steer it to her through what the appellate judges called an “improper application of the court’s ‘related-case rule’ ” in a 2007 proceeding over the NYPD’s since-disbanded Street Crime Unit. 
 
 “What I am trying to say — I am sure I am going to get in trouble for saying it — for $65 you can bring that lawsuit,” she said from the bench in that case according to Thursday’s ruling. 
 
 “And as I said before, I would accept it as a related case, which the plaintiff has the power to ­designate.” 
 
 The order by Judges José Cabranes and Barrington Parker — both generally regarded as liberal — and Judge John Walker Jr. also stayed a series of reforms that Scheindlin ordered to the stop-and-frisk program until after a pending appeal by the city is ­resolved. Among them is the ­appointment of a federal panel to monitor the NYPD. 
 
 Experts on judicial ethics said it was a rare move by the higher court. 
 
 “I’m shocked,” said Hofstra University law professor Monroe Freedman. “It’s not a common thing. It’s ordinarily reserved for extreme cases.” 
 
 Indiana University law professor Charles Geyh said the order could expose Scheindlin to disciplinary action, such as a censure. 
 
 “They’re citing core provisions of the Code of Conduct here,” Geyh said. “This almost seems like an invitation to do it.” 
 
 In a statement, Scheindlin wrote, “I said I would take the case [involving the Street Crime Unit] as related because the plaintiffs charged that the city had violated my order.” 
 
 She also maintained that quotes attributed to her about stop-and-frisk were actually taken from statements she made in court. 
 
 City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo praised the ruling, saying stop-and-frisk “will now receive a fresh and independent look both by the appeals court and then, if necessary, by a different trial-court judge.” 
 
 The New York Civil Liberties Union vowed to appeal the order. 
 
 “There is overwhelming evidence that the stop-and-frisk regime is unconstitutional and out of control — just ask any black or brown New Yorker,” said executive director Donna Lieberman. 
 
 Baher Azmy of the Center for Constitutional Rights, whose lawyers helped spearhead the plaintiffs’ case, said his group remained “optimistic about genuine reform finally occurring.”
– Supporters of the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk strategy have reason to cheer tonight after a new appeals court ruling. The federal court rebuked the judge who declared the policy to be unconstitutional in August and ordered that the reforms she put in place be suspended, reports the New York Post. The court also, in what the New York Times calls "strikingly personal terms," removed Judge Shira Scheindlin from the case. Essentially, the appeals court found her to be biased from the get-go against stop-and-frisk and declared that she "ran afoul" of the code of conduct for judges. (Interviews she gave during the trial didn't help, reports AP.) One thing the court did not do, however, was rule on whether it considered stop-and-frisk to be unconstitutional. That won't be decided until next year, but now Scheindlin's changes won't go into effect in the interim. Among other things, she ordered an independent monitor to oversee the program to make sure that the civil liberties of minorities were protected, and she began a pilot program to have officers wear body cameras to record their stops. Those and another changes are now suspended.