In an augur of what is doubtless to come, George McDonald, one of the Republican candidates, said on Twitter, “One misguided liberal judge is endangering the safety of all New Yorkers. Appeal, Appeal, Appeal!” Mayor Bloomberg, in his press conference, vowed to do just that, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He argued that Scheindlin’s ruling ignored legal precedent and the fact that the stop-and-frisk program had saved “countless lives,” adding: “She ignored the real-world reality of crime.”
Until now, some of the Democratic candidates, including Christine Quinn, the leader in opinion polls, have been equivocating about the policy, criticizing its scale but conspicuously failing to call for it to be scrapped. (The one exception is John Liu, the City Comptroller, who has been trailing in the polls.) Now, all the Democratic candidates are being forced to respond to Scheindlin’s sweeping judgement, in which she said that the N.Y.P.D. “adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling,” and that a federal monitor should be appointed to make sure the department reforms the program and respects the constitutional rights of all New Yorkers.
It is unthinkable that any of the Democrats will reject the judge’s call for big changes to the anti-crime program, which nearly two thirds of Democratic voters disapprove of, according to a Quinnipiac University poll carried out last year. But with an eye to the general election, and the need to attract independent voters, the candidates have to be careful in how much they criticize the N.Y.P.D. and its head, Ray Kelly, who has championed stop-and-frisk. That same Quinnipiac poll suggested that sixty-four per cent of all New Yorkers approve of Kelly’s performance, and almost half—forty-six per cent—approve of stop-and-frisk. If the Democrats go too far, they could present a political opportunity to the Republicans, particularly their leading candidate, Joe Lhota, the former head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. In recent weeks, Lhota has stoutly defended the stop-and-frisk program while saying that he supports more training for police officers in how to implement it.
Lhota’s argument, which Mayor Bloomberg has also articulated, is that the decline in the crime rate is fragile, and that efforts to rein in the N.Y.P.D.—ending stop-and-frisk, adding a monitor—would put the gains at risk. The evidence to support this theory is flimsy at best. The decline in the crime rate has now been sustained for twenty-three years. But the fear of being labeled soft on crime is one that has haunted New York Democrats for decades, and that apprehension hasn’t gone away.
Reflecting this dilemma, some of the Democratic candidates issued carefully calibrated responses to Scheindlin’s ruling. Quinn, whose ties to Bloomberg, and to Bloomberg-era policies, have emerged as the most contentious issue in her campaign, has been criticized in some quarters for saying that she would ask Kelly to stay on as police commissioner. A few weeks ago, she hedged this offer, saying that it would be contingent on Kelly agreeing to bring down the number of stop-and-frisks. Last month, when the City Council passed two bills calling for the establishment of an inspector general for the N.Y.P.D. and giving people who are stopped and frisked the right to sue the police, Quinn supported the first measure and opposed the second. In a statement released shortly after the judge’s ruling, she didn’t mention Kelly by name, but said:
Today’s court ruling affirms what we have known for some time, too many young men of color are being stopped in the streets of New York in an unconstitutional manner and that must stop…I intend to work with the federal monitor to help ensure these stops come down dramatically so that we can build stronger relationships between our communities of color and our police force.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who has made reforming the stop-and-frisk program one of his signature issues, may stand to gain most from the judge’s ruling. In May, de Blasio launched a petition drive to force Bloomberg and Kelly to change course. Last week, he gained the backing of billionaire George Soros, who specifically mentioned his stance on stop-and-frisk as a reason for supporting him. Following Scheindlin’s ruling, de Blasio took to Twitter, saying, “The courts affirmed what NYers already know: the abuse of #StopandFrisk hasn’t made us safer—it’s driven police & community further apart.” Later, he added, “if you agree: to truly reform #StopandFrisk we must pass legislation to ban racial profiling & to create an independent IG for the NYPD.”
Bill Thompson, the former City Comptroller, and the only African-American in the race, has perhaps been the candidate doing the most tap dancing on stop-and-frisk. Having gained the backing of a coalition of police unions, he had, until recently, refused to support efforts to reform the program—most notably, the two City Council bills. Then, last month, with his poll ratings stuck, Thompson adopted a much harsher line, comparing the N.Y.P.D. program to George Zimmerman’s racial profiling of Trayvon Martin—a gambit whose timing drew scorn from some of his rivals. After the judge’s ruling today, Thompson issued a statement saying, “Instead of treating our police and people with respect, the Mayor and Commissioner Kelly have imposed what are effectively quotas on the police and treated entire minority communities with suspicion … I will uphold the law and work with the Federal monitor to make sure New Yorkers never have to choose between their constitutional rights and their safety.”
Of all the Democratic candidates, Liu has been the most fervent critic of the stop-and-frisk program: back in May, he called for it to be abolished, saying that “it creates an atmosphere akin to martial law” in minority areas. Since then, though, Liu’s campaign has struggled, and according to recent polls his support is languishing in the single figures. This morning, Liu put out a statement through the Comptroller’s office saying that Judge Scheindlin had highlighted the “the enormous flaws” in the N.Y.P.D. program and reaffirming his call to “put an end to stop and frisk once and for all.” (I’d missed his comments in an earlier version of this post.)
We will have to wait and see if the ruling, and Bloomberg’s angry reaction to it, change the dynamics of the mayoral contest. Crime and race are always big issues in New York politics, and this year was never going to be an exception. But the stakes have just been raised considerably.
Original Article
Source: newyorker.com
Author: John Cassidy
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