Mayor Stands By Stop and Frisk Policy, But Agrees It Could Be Amended

by Adel Manoukian In a press conference yesterday morning at the First Baptist Church of Brownsville, Brooklyn, Mayor Bloomberg stood by the controversial Stop-and-Frisk policy that the NYPD so readily uses. Although Bloomberg agrees that people who are stopped and frisked by police deserve more respect and better treatment, the mayor stands by the argument that the policy has created a safer city and he refuses to put an end to it. The policy, enacted in the mid-90s, gives police the authority to stop a person and search them, in case of any weapons. In 2011 alone, about 684,330 people were stopped, questioned and/or searched. About 780 guns were actually seized by police. 87% of those who were searched were young male Latinos and blacks, leading many to believe the searched go under racial profiling. Bloomberg denies this idea. "If we stopped people based on census numbers, we would stop many fewer criminals, recover many fewer weapons and allow many more violent crimes to take place," Mr. Bloomberg said at the press conference according to reports from the NY Times. The conference comes after a spur of state and city elected officials and organizations traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. Department of Justice officials about the issue of possible discrimination that goes along with the policy. In his speech, Bloomberg claims that police use the policy more in East New York and Brownsville because of the higher crime rates compared to other parts of the city not because of race. Bloomberg also understands new methods of conducting a search should be taken into consideration to improve the situation.