I have displeased the Bloomberg...
Yesterday,
Vyan wrote about New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's, um...spirited defense of his police department's "stop and frisk" policy. Now I've read a
ThinkProgress report about Bloomberg, who has compared a civil rights group fighting that policy to gun lobby "extremists" like the NRA.
This is what makes it good to be a skeptic; Bloomberg's not my hero, incapable of wrongdoing. And while his support of stronger gun laws has earned my support for some time, now he's chosen to compare liberal supporters like me to the NRA. He couldn't have chosen a better way to alienate us.
So, here's what Bloomberg had to say about it, according to ThinkProgress.
I loathe that illegal guns threaten our communities every day, especially black and Latino communities, because politicians don’t have the courage to stand up for the measures that can save lives. In Washington, some elected officials don’t have the courage to stand up to the special interests on the right and pass common sense gun laws. And in New York City, some don’t have the courage to stand up to special interests on the left and support common sense policing tactics like stop and frisk. We don’t need extremists on the left or the right running our police department, whether it’s the NRA or the NYCLU.
Ha! So in one rhetorical flourish I have become that which I despise, if Bloomberg is to be believed. Of course, he comes under attack here so frequently by gun enthusiasts that I already know all of the mayor's dark secrets, like how he used to be a Republican -- or maybe he is one still, depending on who you talk to. In this case, I do have reason to be skeptical. Unlike polling operations sponsored by MAIG, or gun violence research from the Violence Policy Center, this is one argument where he doesn't have credible support as backup. |
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And that's why MAIG gets my support, gets my name on their petition drives, helps me send out letters to my representatives to push for stronger gun laws, but it doesn't get my
money. Not when there are less dubious outlets for support out there.
Bloomberg warned of disaster if his police department's intelligence gathering -- that seems a bit much for police work -- is impeded, or if the police could be more easily sued for their activities as the result of legislation currently being considered. And he offered this non sequitur in response to the charge about "stop and frisk" targeting minorities.
The dire consequences of allowing citizens to sue police, Bloomberg warned, would deter police from doing their job and would let judges “micro-manage the NYPD.” He also denied that over 86 percent of the people stopped by the police were black or Latino, stating, “Critics who claim that police stops are based on race never seem to mention the fact that the majority of the NYPD’s patrolling officers are minorities.”
So, it doesn't get mentioned, eh? Actually, I'm not surprised. After all, does the fact that the police are minorities themselves render their documented "stop and frisk" targeting
untrue? Does it somehow remove the racial disparity in Bloomberg's orders if he forces minority cops to carry out stop-and-frisk? ThinkProgress' citation tracks back to the
NYT from May of 2012:
Over time, the program has grown to alarming proportions. There were fewer than 100,000 stops in 2002, but the police department carried out nearly 700,000 in 2011 and appears to be on track to exceed that number this year. About 85 percent of those stops involved blacks and Hispanics, who make up only about half the city’s population. Judge Scheindlin said the evidence showed that the unlawful stops resulted from “the department’s policy of establishing performance standards and demanding increased levels of stops and frisks.”
And back in March, they were on schedule to make their
5 millionth stop since the program began. Also in March,
ThinkProgress reported on an investigation into the policy, which included some recordings secretly made by an NYPD officer.
“So what am I supposed to do: Stop every black and Hispanic?” Serrano was heard saying on the tape, which was recorded last month at the 40th Precinct in the Bronx.[...]
“I have no problem telling you this,” the inspector said on the tape. “Male blacks. And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem [to] tell you this, male blacks 14 to 21.”
The ethnic background of the cops carrying out Bloomberg's policy doesn't excuse this, it isn't nearly as important as
the effect of the policy itself.
Most troubling, the NYCLU report seemed to bear out charges of racial profiling in stop-and-frisk situations. In precincts where blacks and Latinos are least represented among the population (14 percent or less), blacks and Latinos were nonetheless the target of 70 percent of stops. Perhaps most staggeringly, the the Wall Street Journal highlighted that the number of stops of black men between the ages of 14 and 24 (168,126 ) exceeded the total city population of black men in that age range (158,406).
And the ethnicity of the cops doing the stopping and frisking isn't nearly as important as that of
the higher-ups directing them to do it.
While minorities have made significant inroads in the police department, patrolling officers recently testified that high-level officials, who are still overwhelmingly white, directed them to target young black males and pressured them to meet a quota of five stops per month, regardless of whether or not they resulted an arrest. Commissioner Ray Kelly openly admitted that the policy was targeting minorities because he wanted to “instill fear” in them, according to the testimony of a state senator.
So while mayor Bloomberg invokes the noun-verb-9/11 argument
of his predecessor, seeking to cow his opposition into silence via the terrorism angle...
“Passing any legislation that undermines our counterterrorism capabilities would be the height of irresponsibility. God forbid terrorists succeed in striking our city because of a politically driven law that undermines the NYPD’s intelligence gathering efforts.”
...what does it say about his interest in stopping terrorism when Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk policy is itself designed to instill fear? How does
inflicting terror on New Yorkers
protect them from terror, exactly? You'll get no pass from me on this one, Mayor. As always, you're a tarnished spokesman for reducing gun violence; useful at times, but otherwise questionable.