It hasn’t been a pleasant two weeks for opponents of stop-and-frisk — because it’s been even worse for the victims of gun violence and their families.
Gun-toting thugs seem to have been emboldened by the NYPD’s reduction in gun stops.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and the mothers of slain shooting victims lashed out at critics for their reticence and low-key response to the recent spate of shootings. These mothers believe that tactics such as stop-and-frisk saves the lives.
In the wake of the shooting death of 4-year-old Lloyd Morgan, Assemblyman Eric Stevenson and state Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., both of The Bronx, endorsed stop-and-frisk as a necessary crime-fighting tool.
While it’s too late for little Lloyd, it’s not too late for Stevenson and Diaz’s colleagues to join them in working with the NYPD to prevent more senseless shooting deaths.
In the wake of this month’s spike in shootings, and Commissioner Kelly’s challenge, the Rev. Al Sharpton is convening a leadership summit on gun violence and stop-and-frisk.
But a summit won’t be productive unless all sides confront the historically toxic relationship between African-Americans and the police. To effectively address policing, crime and gun violence in black and minority communities, community leaders and police officials need to reconcile the past — and lay it to rest.
We can’t have mutual respect and better community relations unless we overcome irrational thoughts and emotions.
It’s a simple fact that black aspirations, and even normal activities, were once deemed crimes. In much of the nation, it was a crime for black slaves to seek the freedoms that were the goal of the American Revolution.
The Thirteenth Amendment ended involuntary servitude, but the police became the instrument for oppressing freed blacks in the Jim Crow South. In the struggles for civil rights of the 1950s and ’60s, African-Americans relied on nonviolent civil disobedience to press their cause — while the police were the instruments of oppression.
Added to this toxic relationship are decades of unjustified police killings of black men, including black policemen, and boys.
Those old wounds reopen with every instance of police brutality, or a police shooting of an unarmed black man or teen.
Yet they are, by and large, old wounds. They should not blind African-Americans to the real, current and deadly dangers posed by the criminal element. Drugs, gang violence, domestic abuse and guns are decimating minority communities.
The city’s minority leadership must commit the names of recent shooting victims to memory, alongside the names of the victims of police brutality. The mothers of Lloyd Morgan and Akeal Christopher, who were shot and killed by gun-wielding thugs, deserve their support.
Minority elected officials and other community leaders must join the NYPD in guaranteeing the civil rights of residents of high-crime areas to be safe in their neighborhoods. Assemblyman Stevenson and Sen. Diaz shouldn’t be the last to support stop-and-frisk.
Under Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, the NYPD has made great strides in lowering crime, especially gun violence — making city streets safer. But they need to make equally great strides in thwarting inappropriate police conduct toward the public, especially young men of color.
They can start by rotating all NYPD officers through the Community Affairs Bureau, so each member of the force encounters residents allied in the fight against crime. Daily exposure to heartrending depravity can only desensitize officers to the humanity of those they’re sworn to protect.
Bloomberg and Kelly must make it crystal clear to the 34,000 police who patrol our city streets that no New Yorker should experience mistreatment at the hands of New York’s Finest.
Minority elected officials and community leaders, in turn, must emerge from the summit standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Bloomberg and Kelly against murder, mayhem and lawlessness.
The victims and families of the recent gun violence deserve justice and solace in knowing that the NYPD will be supported in taking back the streets from gun-toting thugs.
Once minority leaders and the police are united, the armed sociopaths who terrorize local communities don’t stand a chance.