A federal judge has granted class action status to a lawsuit opposing the New York City Police Department’s controversial “stop-and-frisk” program, opening the door to legal recourse for hundreds of thousands of people targeted by police. The judge’s ruling cited the city’s “deeply troubling apathy” toward the constitutional rights of New Yorkers. A recent study by the New York Civil Liberties Union found the NYPD program is racially skewed and largely ineffective, with blacks and Latinos making up 87 percent of people stopped last year.