Add NYPD Sgt. Craig Bier to the roll of victims in New York’s Summer of Shooting — even as stop-and-frisks plunge.
The Queens cop was wounded in both legs Wednesday, becoming the 10th city cop shot this year.
So, will critics of the city’s stop-and-frisk program, which gets hundreds of guns off the streets every year, finally give it a rest?
After all, as the 10 shot cops prove, it’s not just Joe and Jane New Yorker who are at risk, but also the guys in blue who protect them.
Fat chance. Just yesterday, a New York Times editorial wasn’t satisfied with the 34 percent rollback of the program. (Not once, by the way, did it note the spike in crime; apparently, that’s a lower priority.)
Sgt. Bier and his partner were patrolling in Jamaica in an unmarked car when a pedestrian, noticing them, abruptly began to flee.
Bier chased the suspect, John Thomas, by foot into an alley. Thomas allegedly shot four times, hitting Bier once in each leg, though the cop heroically got off six shots himself.
Thankfully, Bier’s wounds aren’t life-threatening. But they come during a summer when the lead has been flying.
On Tuesday alone, eight people were shot in incidents in Harlem, The Bronx and Brooklyn. So far this year, individual shootings stand at 887 — up 9.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of stops that cops make plunged 34 percent between the first and second quarters of this year.
The trend’s predictable: As we’ve argued, the fewer the stops, the more guns on the street. And the more folks struck by bullets.
Average New Yorkers understand this; many regular folks, particularly families of victims, plead for more stops.
But the elitist critics (the Times, the New York Civil Liberties Union) don’t seem to care much about consequences.
No, they’re not likely to rest until the whole stop-and-frisk program ends and gunfire envelops the city.
The critics need to be ignored.
The city needs to keep the program robust.