Michael Bloomberg’s passionate defense of the NYPD this week has in many ways been his finest hour. Unfortunately, it has also exposed a key vulnerability for the city’s future: The one politician willing to offer an unapologetic defense of policies that have made New York the safest big US city won’t be mayor much longer.
At the outset of this year’s mayoral race, we had hopes for Speaker Chris Quinn when, after meeting with Commissioner Ray Kelly, she said she would keep him as police chief if she is elected. Now she, too, has surrendered, by backing legislation for an inspector general that would second-guess the police. In so doing, she has also created an opening for a candidate with backbone.
That candidate will not come from any of Quinn’s rivals in the Democratic Party. Though few are willing to oppose stop-question-frisk outright — Comptroller John Liu is virtually alone in his call to scrap the program completely — most have taken Quinn’s cheap out: supporting “reforms” that would in fact strangle the program and threaten the progress on crime.
The context is important, too. For these calls for “reform” occur as the same federal judge who has ruled against the police before is now set to do so again in a case that might make the stop-and-frisk debate moot.
They also come as radical voices in the Democratic Party are doing their part to discredit the program by suggesting that the cops or Commissioner Kelly are racist.
That leaves the Republicans. Unfortunately, though GOP candidates are stronger on this than the Democrats, their support remains tepid. Those who think that characterization unfair should compare the remarks of any of the GOP candidates on stop-and-frisk to what Mayor Bloomberg has been saying.
All seem to have bought into the idea that the program needs to be changed. At a candidates forum this month, for example, John Catsimatidis said, “God bless our police department” — but went on to suggest a rating system that would prohibit cops who didn’t score well from stopping and frisking suspects.
Former MTA chairman Joe Lhota likewise endorsed the concept of stop-and-frisk but added that we need to “control it” and “regulate” it.
To his credit, Lhota yesterday stressed his commitment to erasing “the misinformation about this successful tool.” He further reiterated his opposition to appointing an inspector general. Even so, he’s yet to reflect Bloomberg’s level of passionate support.
Yes, even the best of policies can be improved, in the same way that Mayor Bloomberg improved on the crime-fighting legacy of Rudy Giuliani.
At the same time, the NYPD has already shown itself responsive to calls for real reform: Last year, for example, Kelly introduced a range of steps to improve the program, and just this month, a department memo called for greater documentation of all stops — none of which has satisfied the critics.
At this critical moment, what New York needs is a politician willing to separate from the pack with a full-throated defense of stop-and-frisk that speaks to two truths: first, that it is saving lives, especially of the city’s minority citizens; and second, that many who pretend to want only to “reform” the program really won’t be satisfied until they gut it.