The New York Times is upset. It’s not just that a 16-month-old boy in Brooklyn was shot in the head this week while he was in a stroller being walked by his father — the intended target. No, the Times is bothered because the elected mayor of this city had the temerity to suggest that we are likely to see more of these tragedies if folks like those at the Times get their way on constraining police from going after bad guys.
In a press conference Monday, Mayor Bloomberg didn’t mince words when it came to the killing of Antiq Hennis. “For 20 years in this city, crime has come down,” the mayor said. “God help us if we stop doing what we have been doing.” The mayor went on to complain that weak gun laws have led to guns coming here, and said that making it more difficult for the cops to do their jobs “would turn around all the progress that we’ve made.”
That was too much for the Times, which had an attack of the editorial vapors. Yesterday, the paper accused Bloomberg of having “scarred” communities with his stop-and-frisk police policies, and claimed that he was being divisive by using the shooting to talk about his policies.
Here’s a question: When a tragedy like the shooting of Antiq Hennis occurs in this city, isn’t it the mayor’s obligation to speak out about it?
Especially a mayor who can rightly claim to have saved many lives with police policies that have seen violent crime plummet during his time in office? And especially at a moment when many of the candidates most likely to replace him in office are advocating policies that threaten to undo this progress and return us to the days when the criminals owned the streets?
No city policy, no matter how wise, will prevent all gun deaths. But Bloomberg is absolutely right to argue that stop-and-frisk has done its part to make this city safer. It has done so not only by taking guns away from bad guys, but by making others think twice about carrying them in public.
That’s why the day after these remarks Mayor Bloomberg went to court to overturn a new law passed by the City Council that makes it easier for those who have been stopped to sue the cops. We are skeptical about his chances to prevail, but we’re glad to see that he’s not going down without a fight.
Or without annoying The New York Times.