New York City Mayor Bloomberg is defending his police department use of the police of Stop and Frisk, even after a District Court judge ruled in favor of a class action lawsuit.
STORY: No More! NYPD’s Stop & Frisk Could End With Lawsuit
During his radio show, Bloomberg defended “stop and frisk” with only a passing reference to the changes Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced to the program on Thursday in the face of criticism that it unfairly targets blacks and Latinos.
The Mayor said:
“This is a program that is effective…People say there is a divide between the public and the police. There may be a divide between some of the public and the police, but the divide that is no longer there is that you used to not be able to walk the streets of this city and today you walk every neighborhood during the day and most neighborhoods at night.”
He continued:
“We’re going to keep doing this…We’re not going to walk away from tactics that work and we’re not going to walk away from bringing crime down.”
Bloomberg went on to say that the city would set a record low in murders this year, as well as a record for “getting guns off the street and out of the hands of kids.”
Bringing crime down and reducing murders is a good thing, but should it be at the cost of targeting blacks and Hispanics to fill quotas within the department?
