The Issue: The City Council’s proposed reforms for the Police Department and its stop-and-frisk program.
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Councilwoman Helen Foster’s objections to stop-and-frisk are understandable when viewed through the prism of minorities, but are harmful to minority communities, which would suffer the most from the program’s elimination (“NYC’s Pro-Crime Council,” Editorial, Oct. 15).
There is a reason the NYPD has fewer stop-and-frisks being conducted at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, for example, than in other neighborhoods. Moreover, a large amount of these stops are being conducted by minority officers themselves.
The program is driven by crime statistics, rather than race. The sooner we agree to that premise, the safer we will all become.
Phil Serpico
Queens
The members of the City Council who want to end the stop-and-frisk program need to get their heads out of the sand.
I carried a badge in the city for over 20 years, and never did I or anyone I worked with get up in the morning and say, “I’m going to stop and question someone just for the fun of it.”
We all went to work thinking we would try to make some sense of the world in which we worked, put the bad guys in prison and get home safely to our families.
The stop-and-frisk program is a vital and useful tool in policing.
The City Council members should leave policy and practice to the professionals. They certainly don’t want to be told how to do their job.Robert Drake
West Babylon
The City Council has again showed its disdain for the city it is supposed to serve and for the police officers who actually serve it — sometimes at the cost of their lives.
The usual suspects on the council are more concerned with protecting criminals from the police than protecting honest people from criminals.
Whoever becomes mayor next year will have to choose between New York City as it was in the 1970s or the city of today, which is protected by an effective and pro-active police department.Robert DeCandia
New Hyde Park