Bill DeBlasio ran opposing New York City's Stop and Frisk policy. In fact, his opposition to and Christine Quinn's refusal to denounce said policy are credited by some with propelling DeBlasio to victory in the primary.
And yet today DeBlasio announced he was hiring William Bratton, whom some call the "Father of Stop and Frisk."
Listen to this interview from ten months ago, when Bratton was hired to consult on "improving" the Oakland Police Department and his position on Stop and Frisk was being called out by local civil rights advocates.
((Stop & Frisk)) is a constitutionally protected activity by police. The challenge for police is to do it legally, compassionately, consistently. Not just in poor neighborhoods, not just in minority neighborhoods. And that is the issue, unfortunately, around the country, because that's where it is most frequently used because, unfortunately, that is where the majority of crime, both serious and minor, is committed. That's the reality of our lives, our society.
It is an essential tool of policing. Can police be better trained, supervised and monitored? I think they can. But those that are advocating that it be done away with or representing that it can be done away with, I'm sorry, but you do away with it and your going to have your cities overrun with crime because it is the basic tool that every police department in America uses.
Does this sound like someone willing to curtail NYPD's
Stop and Frisk policy in any way, shape or form?
It's not just Stop and Frisk. Here's Jamilah King at Colorlines summarizing Bratton's career.
((Bratton)) is a strong proponent of the "zero tolerance" approach to fighting crime. That approach, known among researchers as the "broken windows theory," argues that in order to beat big crime, you've got to start small, and early, before relatively petty infractions balloon into violent crimes, or mass rebellions. In New York, the approach was credited with drastically reducing the city's murder rate. But not before critics accused officers of widespread police harassment of young black and Latino men for petty infractions like loitering, truancy, public noise and jumping train turnstyles.
Or put more simply
Here is NBC New York:
Bratton also led the LAPD for seven years, where he dramatically expanded the use of stop and frisk...
While Bratton led the LAPD, the department's use of stop and frisk expanded significantly. In 2002, cops made 587,200 stops, and by 2008, they made 875,204 stops...
Bratton first held the top NYPD post in 1994... Crime dropped significantly during his tenure, but civilian complaints about police misconduct and brutality went up while he led the department.
(Of course Bratton had little, if anything, to do with reducing New York City's or Los Angeles' crime rate because crime across the country was showing significant reductions at the same time - for reasons which are still debated. Basically, anything that police are doing when crime goes down is the cause of crime going down (and if crime is going up, they need more money to do more of whatever it is they are doing). Unless, that is, it is a drastic reduction in the number of Stop & Frisk incidents reported, which has happened this year in New York City because of the court ruling and the incredible negative attention the policy engendered, while crime still went down in the five boroughs. But I digress.)
Some of the people who fought hardest to end Stop and Frisk likely threw up in their offices before appearing outside with smiles and making nice, forcing out conciliatory statements at press conferences:
From the Center for Constitutional Rights:
Given Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio's commitment to dropping the appeal in Floyd, we expect incoming Commissioner Bill Bratton will embrace the full remedial order as a roadmap to meaningful stop-and-frisk reform and changing the police department's relationships with the communities it serves.
Bratton previously addressed unconstitutional racial discrimination in the Los Angeles Police Department, working with a court-appointed monitor to implement change. At the same time, we hope Bratton's appointment is not a signal from de Blasio that the NYPD will be ramping up so-called "broken windows" policing, surveillance, and numbers-driven policing.
As Mr. Bratton himself has stated, constitutional policing is not inconsistent with effective policing. Mr. Bratton has implemented reform before under a court-ordered process, and we are hopeful he will work with community representatives and civil liberties groups do the same with the NYPD.
In other words,
"we pray to whatever God there may or may not be that Bratton will not implement policies that he has advocated for for the last twenty years. Because. We have no idea why because."
From the New York Civil Liberties Union:
We look forward to working with the new mayor and police commissioner to ensure that fundamental changes are made to the NYPD, including a top-to-bottom culture shift that ends racial profiling and the abuse of stop-and-frisk.
The mayor won election on the promise to close the book on the tale of two cities, and New Yorkers from all backgrounds have made clear that we will hold him to that promise. It's a challenging task, but we are optimistic we will begin to see an era where members of all communities can trust the police, and where the police respect the rights and dignity of all New Yorkers.
In other words.
"You promised! We're going to try to hold you to that, even though you just stabbed us in the back by hiring someone who personifies police use of racial profiling. And good luck to us doing it!"
This kind of backstabbing is one of the major reasons people lose what little faith they have left in any kind of electoral process.
DeBlasio's mandate was clear from his electoral victories. He could have chosen someone who was not the symbol of Stop and Frisk, someone who could have pledged to support DeBlasio in his efforts to made NYPD an organization that respected constitutional rights without being a massive hypocrite. But no, the Mayor-elect goes and slaps every voter in the face who believed his campaign promises, and every outside supporter who was hoping beyond hope he would not do what he has just done.
Whaaap.
Thank you Bill 'Liar' DeBlasio. Can I Have Another?
Whaaap.
11:39 AM PT: Partial statement by Councilperson Williams, an adamant foe of Stop and Frisk:
"Commissioner-Designate Bratton must be responsive to all New Yorkers and restore the faith and trust that every resident must have in order for the NYPD to effectively protect and serve New Yorkers of all backgrounds, in every corner of this city. Far too many New Yorkers have witnessed their civil rights and liberties violated under a Stop and Frisk era, as the Mayor-elect put it during his campaign, which has only bred distrust in many corners of our city.
"The primary difference now I believe is who the Mayor-Elect is and what lessons Commissioner-Designate Bratton learned in New York and other cities. One of the reasons I endorsed Mayor-Elect De Blasio is because he acknowledged the cries from our communities and endorsed effective remedies. These communities are looking to Mayor-Elect De Blasio for accountability in the direction that the NYPD takes. I praise Mayor-Elect de Blasio for vowing that his administration will drop the appeal in the city's suit against the Community Safety Act, the department, under the leadership of Commissioner-Designate Bratton must take the next step and reassure all New Yorkers that the NYPD will continue to reduce crime and keep our streets safe, but do so in a way that fully respects the civil rights and liberties of every resident.
"Commissioner-Designate Bratton can rebuild the trust of New Yorkers in the police department by rejecting any policing mechanism that relies on bias-based profiling, which is what the two-year fight to pass the Community Safety Act was all about; by establishing relationships with New York's diverse communities, including low-income, Muslim, Black, Latino, immigrant, LGBT and 'differently abled' communities and gaining their trust and support. Most significantly, the Commissioner must improve the way that officers' performance is measured, which must include how well an officer builds relationships with those that they police, instead of relying solely on stops, summons and arrest quotas.
Fri Dec 06, 2013 at 9:25 AM PT: