Today we find out whether our City Council will handcuff the men and women who put their lives on the line for us daily – or if, in the name of pandering, they conveniently forget our city has the lowest murder rate in recorded history. If they forget we have fewer shootings, fewer murders. That we’re down to less than one murder a day – a statistic that used to hover around more than six a day in 1990.
That we live in a city where, unlike in years not so long ago, we can walk around at night without fearing that a gun will be pulled on us, that someone will demand our purses, our cash, our jewelry.
Today, the 51 members of our City Council are expected to vote on whether or not to override Mayor Bloomberg’s veto of the Community Safety Act – two bills that establish an inspector general who would investigate and review police policy and allow individuals to sue the NYPD over perceived profiling.
So what of this? Officer after officer have said, if this passes, they will not want to get out of their patrol cars because they’ll be so worried that lawsuit-happy people will come after them as they try to do what they’ve always done: Help keep us safe – all of us.
Today, we hope our City Council members will remember what one of their biggest jobs is: Public safety. And, after the mayor and police commissioner announced the biggest gun bust in the city’s history this past Monday, we can surely say: Any legislator who votes to override the veto has just slapped every member of the public in the face – or worse.
Standing before a stockpile of weapons – including machine guns that can fire off 30 rounds – the mayor and police commissioner said on Monday they had landed more than 250 firearms following a 10-month operation that nabbed 19 defendants who were reportedly running weapons into New York from places like the Carolinas.
And the gun traffickers who were caught on tape – guess what they cited as a major impediment to transporting weapons?
Stop and frisk.
“Yeah, I’m in Charlotte now,” one defendant is recorded as saying. “I can’t leave until you come, ‘cause I can’t take them [guns] to my house, to my side of town ‘cause I’m in Brownsville. So we got, like, whatchamacallit, stop and frisk.”
We certainly don’t agree with the mayor on a lot of things. But, on stop and frisk? He’s right.
It’s time to keep stop and frisk – but get more cops out on the streets so communities can, once again, have the neighborhood police they know and love.
Stop and frisk must be allowed. And those who vote against it? Or candidates who say they want to completely eliminate it? Well, we do believe there’s an election coming up.
