Although a judge has ruled that the Stop and Frisk program New York City Mayor Bloomberg has taken personal ownership of is unconstitutional specifically because it’s racially discriminatory, he wrote a two page column for the Washington Post this weekend to rebut the court.
The good news is you don’t need to read the whole thing. He contradicts himself in the first two paragraphs.
I understand Bloomberg is saying that they’re simply going where the numbers tell them to go, but that doesn’t make it right. And as the court recently pointed out, that is a violation of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Furthermore, he’s also implying that they’ve implemented the policy to save the Black and Hispanic communities from themselves, which seems condescending and insulting.
Many people have used numbers to justify racially discriminatory policy in the past, and I don’t think Bloomberg wants to be included in that group of esteemed individuals.
Then again, maybe he does. He recently called for the fingerprinting of all residents of public housing.
Not to be overlooked — Bloomberg is currently arguing that Stop and Frisk saves lives although the court found the policy results in an overwhelming number of false positives that do not justify the policy. And he’s using very fantastical numbers that would lead you to believe New York would skyrocket to the murder capital of the nation, surpassing Chicago, if Stop and Frisk doesn’t continue.
Chicago saw 506 murders in 2012, while Mayor Bloomberg claims Stop and Frisk, which more often than not finds no instances of wrong-doing, miraculously saved 761 lives last year and 21,651 since he took office. Does this make sense?