Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly made a last-ditch effort yesterday to kill two bills that would rein in the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk.
“The lawsuits [one bill] would allow against the tactics of Commissioner Kelly wouldn’t just cause a possible financial burden and tie up officers in court and take them off the streets. The state courts could also ban all the police tactics the commissioner ordered,” Bloomberg said of a push to establish an inspector general for the NYPD.
He said that would make the city “the laughingstock of the country and the world.”
The other bill would give people who are stopped and frisked the right to sue if they can prove cops targeted them because of their race, gender, ethnicity or other demographic factors.
“Every tort lawyer is going to buy a new house and a new car,” the mayor snapped.