Rev. Blowhard is at it again.
Al Sharpton yesterday was threatening legal action against New York City based on some new NYPD statistics relating to the department’s so-called stop-and-frisk program – a tactic whereby officers detain and search suspects for weapons, illegal drugs and other contraband.
There has been a five-fold increase in reported stop-and-frisk activity of late. According to the new numbers, submitted to the City Council last Friday, there were roughly 500,000 such incidents in 2006, compared to 90,000 in 2002.
The department says this reflects better reporting – but also freely admits that it is a result of more aggressive policing tactics, too.
Two facts need to be noted here:
* The stops are by no means random. They come only in connection with suspected criminal activity, and involve only individuals who match descriptions given to police officers by crime victims or witnesses to crimes, and;
* They are a major factor in a 29-percent drop in street crimes since 2002. Crime in the city last year was at its lowest levels since 1963.
Of course, this means nothing to Sharpton – who is disturbed that fully 55 percent of the New Yorkers stopped last year were black.
“We’re not half the population in the city,” Sharpton said yesterday, according to the Associated Press. “How do we get stopped and frisked half, other than there is a measure of profiling based on race that permeates in the NYPD?”
A fair question.
Here is the answer, according to the same numbers that have the reverend so exercised.
Yes, again, 55 percent of those stopped were black.
But, at the same time, fully 68.5 percent of the suspects in question were black – again, according to the crime victims in question, or eyewitnesses to the crime.
Let us be frank.
There is indeed a problem here – but it is by no means with the NYPD.
Black New Yorkers disproportionately attract the attention of the police simply because black New Yorkers disproportionately commit crime in New York – according to the testimony, not of the police, but of crime victims.
And study after study demonstrates beyond any doubt whatsoever that those victims are themselves disproportionately black. Overwhelmingly so.
There is indeed a discussion to be had here – but certainly not of the sort that Al Sharpton and his ilk seek.
New York City today is safer than it has been in two generations – largely in spite of the Rev. Al Sharpton.
If he wants now to turn the town back over to the armies of the night, perhaps he should just say so and be done with it.