Nobody got shot on US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin’s block over the weekend. Lucky her.
But most folks aren’t so fortunate as to live within a stray shot of the Brooklyn Heights promenade. For seven New York men who definitely did not — four black, three Hispanic — that disparity was fatal.
Disparity, because random gunfire is all but totally absent from predominantly white neighborhoods in New York. This is good news for whites, but it hardly seems fair.
Disparity, because — as might be expected — whites are rarely the victims of murderous gun violence of the sort that struck down 26 city residents over 72 hours this past weekend. Seven died, 19 were wounded, including three under the age of 16 — and all were black or Hispanic.
The NYPD’s response to such carnage has been to assign vastly inequitable attention to the neighborhoods with bloody sidewalks — depriving Brownstone Brooklyn, the Upper West Side and similar tranquil glades of their “fair share” of cops. And how can that be equitable?
Absurd question? No more absurd than the proposition that has taken up much of Judge Scheindlin’s time and energy over the past several months.
She’s overseeing a civil trial meant to determine whether the NYPD’s commitment of disproportionate resources to high-gun-crime neighborhoods represents an unconstitutional abridgement of the civil rights of certain people who live in those neighborhoods.
In general terms, everybody — probably even the New York Civil Liberties Union — agrees that crime is bad, awful and even worse than that.
But the consensus dissolves when it comes to actually doing something about street violence. That is, when it comes to deploying strategies meant to disarm the gangbangers.
The NYCLU and some fellow travelers brought the suit, contending that concentrating attention on young black and Hispanic males violates their rights.
Specifically at issue is the city’s “stop-and-frisk” policy: Cops stop young men reasonably held to be acting suspiciously, question them and sometimes frisk them for weapons. This seems like a broad-brush approach, but the policy is limited to high-violence neighborhoods and aimed at individuals whose behavior suggests cause for concern.
Let’s be frank: The fact that violent crime is almost exclusively a black-Hispanic phenomenon, in terms of criminals and victims, is not something the NYPD can do anything about. That’s for the social scientists and their cousins, the social engineers.
Instead, the department must deal with sad facts such as these, reported by the superlative Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute: “Here is what the anti-cop critics never divulge: Blacks are 66 percent of all violent-crime suspects, according to the victims of and witnesses to those crimes. Blacks commit around 70 percent of all robberies and about 80 percent of all shootings in the city. Add Hispanic shooters, and you account for 98 percent of all shootings in the city.
“Whites, by contrast, were only 5 percent of all violent crime suspects in 2011. According to victim and witness reports, they commit barely over 1 percent of all shootings and less than 5 percent of all robberies.”
Precisely what sparked this weekend’s outburst isn’t clear. The hot weather doubtless was a factor — but is there reasonable cause for worry beyond that?
The lawsuit, combined with some appalling political pandering in this mayoral election year, has put stop-and-frisk under a negative spotlight in recent months — and stops themselves dropped 22 percent last year.
Have the gangbangers decided that it’s safe to pack again?
And what will they do if Scheindlin finds for the NYCLU?
Nobody disputes that stop-and-frisk is legal; that issue was resolved in the NYPD’s favor long ago. This suit, again, addresses individual equity issues.
But Scheindlin’s hospitable approach to the plaintiffs’ case during the trial was exceeded only by her hostility to the NYPD’s efforts to defend itself.
Plus this: “What I really like to do is write opinions,” Scheindlin told The New Yorker recently. “There you get to do what you think is right, what you believe in. You’re pushing the margins of the envelope, being willing to be creative.”
What that has to do with the rule of law is anybody’s guess. But a judge who boasts in public of jurisprudential “creativity” is a worrisome proposition.
One thing is clear, though: Whatever happens down the road, it will be a while before it touches Brownstone Brooklyn. But it won’t be forever.