Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) talked to GQ about Michael Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” policy when he was New York City mayor.
Said Jeffries: “We fought Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to dismantle the unconstitutional and out-of-control stop-and-frisk program as implemented in New York City. It was outrageous, it was harmful, and it was destructive in the manner in which communities of color were treated.”
He added: “That said, I do believe that Mayor Bloomberg’s apology was heartfelt and authentic, in part because Mike Bloomberg prides himself on evaluating the data. In fact, when he was mayor of New York, he would often say, ‘Trust in God. All others bring data.’ That’s what he’s all about. Any evaluation of the data after stop-and-frisk was dismantled suggests that crime didn’t go up; it went down significantly. The data makes clear that stop-and-frisk, as aggressively practiced during the Bloomberg years, had nothing to do with the decline in crime because crime went down dramatically once stop-and-frisk was declared unconstitutional. As a result, I believe that Michael Bloomberg, looking at the data, could authentically conclude that he was wrong and therefore should apologize.”
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