Posted on 03/25/2013 7:02:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A fiendishly deceptive article about the New York Police Department in the New York Times has set back the cause of public safety not just in New York but nationally. A front-page story on Friday twisted a police commander’s exhortation to an underperforming officer to work harder against crime into an injunction to target blacks on the basis of race. The commander’s statements were captured on a tape secretly recorded by the officer and replayed last Thursday during a federal racial-profiling trial directed against the New York Police Department’s stop, question, and frisk policy. The officer had already joined the lawsuit when he made the recording and was patently trying to goad the commander into making a statement that could be used in the litigation. As I explain here, Officer Pedro Serrano failed in his effort to elicit anything remotely approaching a racial-profiling mandate from Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, who is shown in the recording to be fiercely committed to protecting the overwhelmingly black and Hispanic residents of his South Bronx precinct and who explicitly repudiates stopping people on the basis of race, rather than criminal behavior. It didn’t matter. The Times finished the job for Serrano, making it seem that McCormack had said the opposite of what he had actually said. (Readers can now compare the Times account of the episode with the actual transcript and decide for themselves.)
Just to make sure that the damage was irrevocable, the Times followed up the next day with an editorial that was even more duplicitous than the article on which it was based. Titled “Walking While Black in New York,” the editorial strips whatever meager context the Friday article had included that might have allowed a highly determined reader to hazily glimpse the truth behind the Times’ distortions: that McCormack was referring to an ongoing, local string of robberies perpetrated by young male blacks when he responded to Serrano’s increasingly aggressive racial provocations with the phrases: “The problem was, what, male blacks. And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, [the problem was] male blacks 14 to 20, 21.” It is perfectly appropriate to mention suspects’ race when police are looking for actual perpetrators who have been identified by their victims, but “Walking While Black” displays a breathtakingly juvenile determination to eliminate all facts that stand in the way of the all-consuming agenda to demonize the police.
If the Times honored its by now-dubious status as the newspaper of record, it would run a correction. But even if it did, it would come too late to help the police. Sharpton, the NAACP, and the ACLU are labeling McCormack’s remarks the NYPD’s “smoking gun” and are calling for his suspension, despite his strong backing from the actual residents of the South Bronx. But this is about more than one hard-working commander’s slandered reputation or the ability of the NYPD to preserve its record-breaking crime drop. The conceit that McCormack has revealed the truth about proactive policing will become gospel in anti-cop circles nationwide, making it even harder for police everywhere to do their jobs, due to political pressure from above and street resistance from below.
On March 6 of this year, I attended a community council meeting in the NYPD’s 40th Precinct, where Deputy Inspector McCormack presides. A former Marine named Duwon urgently called for more vigorous policing. He travels to the Bronx from Brooklyn to escort his mother to cash her Social Security payments, he said, because she is terrified of the addicts and youth milling on the corners. “If she ever fell, they’d pick her dry,” he observed.
The Times’ writers and publishers will likely not notice much of a difference (at least initially) if the current campaign against New York’s stop, question, and frisk policy succeeds. Times staffers overwhelmingly live in safe neighborhoods where shootings are merely theoretical. But law-abiding residents of inner-city neighborhoods know that effective policing is a life-and-death matter, and thus passionately support law enforcement. The NYPD works around the clock to provide upstanding members of poor communities the same freedom from fear that affluent areas take for granted. The Times’ preposterous conceit of “walking while black” will only widen the crime gap that, despite the NYPD’s unmatched success in fighting crime, still separates the cozy enclaves of white liberals and the hard streets that continue to blight too many striving inner-city lives.
How do you it’s slander?
Why is stop and frisk a good thing?
I don’t care about how effective it is, its unconstitutional.
Stop and frisk appears to be a natural requirement, once you’ve disarmed the citizenry. The police can’t protect anyone if they only react; thus, scared defenseless citizens are OK with abusing the rights of people who might be criminals with preemptive searches.
How do you know it’s slander?
Ann Coulter thinks it’s grand, told Geraldo that the other day...
Ann is a liberal in her personal time.
Did you expect a fair, objective, balanced, informative, non biased article in the New York Times?
RE: Why is stop and frisk a good thing?
Well, apparently it has been responsible for the dramatic drop in crime in NYC. Crime rates are at its lowest since the 1960’s and NYC is arguably one of the safest big cities in the world.
And since NYC’s gun laws are one of the strictest in the the nation, the only way the cops will compensate for this is to stop and frisk ( by the hundreds of thousands mind you ).
The thing that most people complain about is this — Cops tend to stop and frisk BLACKS and Hispanics at a disproportional rate compared to Whites and Asians.
Don’t get caught with even a pen knife in NYC.
So that makes gross violations of the 4th and 5th Amendments OK?
There is no doubt a sensitive, progressive liberal judge who happens to live in a very safe area will find this policing technique unconstitutional. Murders, muggings, drug trafficking, child and spousal abuse will of coarse soar in minority neighborhoods and their terrible economies will become worse. Of course the judge will enjoy the adulation he receives at the next cocktail party he attends.
Its unconstitutional.
A terrible economy doesn’t cause crime. A lack of morals and socialist policies create crime.
The argument of those who are pro stop-and-frisk ( and I must say that there are many on the RIGHT who are for it ) is this :
Every American citizen has the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. It’s the reason tough talking TV characters always snap “where’s your warrant?” when police start snooping around.
Unfortunately, the police don’t always need a warrant. In fact, all American cities have a stop and frisk exception.
Under this, the police can stop you on the street and pat you down for anything illegal...as long as they have suspicion.
So how exactly does stop and frisk work? And just when can the police use it?
Stop and frisk has been an effective tool for police since the 1968 case Terry v. Ohio, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of it.
The court agreed with the police that officers face uncertain and dangerous situations on the streets—circumstances that can potentially threaten both law enforcement officers and the public. For this reason, police officers need a set of flexible responses that allow them to react based on the information they possess. Thus, distinctions should be made between a stop and an arrest (or seizure of a person), and between a frisk and a search.
Under the Terry ruling, a police officer may stop and detain a person based on reasonable suspicion. And, if the police reasonably suspect the person is armed and dangerous, they may also frisk him or her for weapons.
What exactly is Reasonable Suspicion?
Reasonable suspicion is defined by a set of factual circumstances that would lead a reasonable police officer to believe criminal activity is occurring. This is different from the probable cause (what a reasonable person would believe) required for an arrest, search, and seizure. If the stop and frisk gives rise to probable cause to believe the detainee has committed a crime, then the police officer should have the power to make a formal arrest and conduct a search of the person.
So, to re-iterate, EVERY CITY already has a stop-and-frisk policy. It is only in NYC where this has been done on a massive scale.
Stop and frisk is based on a Supreme Court decision.
Compare the homicide rate in NYC with the rate in Chicago.
So is Obamacare.
Texas doesn’t have a stop and frisk policy. Heck Miami doesn’t either.
RE: I would not tolerate stop and frisk. Its unconstitutional.
Then you would not tolerate cops who give you a ticket for running a red light or going through a stop sign without proof ( only his word against yours ).
Try fighting it in court. Most of the time — YOU LOSE. The judge listens to the cops.
There goes “innocent until proven guilty”.
At least in stop and frisk, you aren’t fined for anything.
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