The Issue: Whether the City Council’s push for more oversight of the NYPD would help or hurt the city.
***
It doesn’t seem plausible that a successful city agency needs additional oversight (“Invitation to Mayhem,” Editorial, March 21).
Christine Quinn’s decision to join John Liu, Bill Thompson and Bill de Blasio in politicizing control of the NYPD hopefully does not portend a lack of support for the Finest.
The community representatives who want additional oversight seem blinded by self-interest.
The present judicial review of stop-and-frisk is a good example of overhead review of the department.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne has highlighted the existing avenues of oversight available to individuals and suggested there is no need for an additional outlet.
It appears that the mayor is a lame duck on this issue, given that a veto override is supported. Is this override possible because the council represents a diverse population, or does it fear losing voter support?
John Gargiulo
Whitestone
Thanks to Quinn for pointing out why our national and local governments need to continue to grow.
In defending her wish to add another level of bureaucracy to the NYPD, she said, “If you have a lot of entities and they’re not getting the job done, then more is needed.”
No sense in fixing what’s broke, just do more of it.
Doug Wilder
Garden City
The editorial “Invitation to Mayhem” is misinformed on the law and circumstances of legitimate stops and frisks.
A stop is permissible when a cop has reasonable suspicion a person is involved in a crime.
A frisk is allowed only when the officer has an articulable basis to pat for a weapon, such as seeing a bulge resembling a gun. That frisk is for the cop’s safety.
But wide-scale stops and frisks cannot be countenanced as a strategy for crime fighting by rounding up the usual suspects — mostly young blacks and Hispanics.
Such behavior is racial profiling and will invite community resentment and legal challenge.
Besides being an affront to our constitutional protections, unfettered stops and frisks on the basis of hunches or arrest quotas violate our sensibilities as a free people.
Cops, too, must obey the law. If police misconduct is your measure of law and order, that will invite mayhem.
Michael Meyers
New York Civil Rights Coalition
Manhattan
As a former NYPD lieutenant, I concur that stop-and-frisk is a major crime-fighting tool.
However, cops don’t need this program to get the job done. A “common right of inquiry” followed by “mere suspicion,” then “reasonable suspicion” and finally “probable cause” are all the police need to effectively mirror stop-and-frisk, so the point is moot.
The mayoral candidates who favor dismantling the program are using this ploy to garner minority votes.
Quinn, de Blasio, Thompson and Jumaane Williams, though he’s not running for mayor, have led less intelligent people into believing that the repeal of this program would make the police less “hands on” and that an inspector general will make them think twice before taking action.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Any cop worth his salt knows this and is laughing at these four idiots.
Ralph Manente
Yonkers
Even with stop-and-frisk, we still read about innocent children who are killed by gunfire.
What will happen when stop-and-frisk is, for all intents, made useless?
How long will it be until we are competing with Chicago as the city with the most murders per capita?
I understand people are upset when stopped or questioned, but what is saving an innocent life worth?
If the murders are happening in a certain area, isn’t that the area we protect? Or should we go where the incidents are less or nonexistent just to be politically correct?
That will not save lives.
W. Fugowski
Brooklyn