Mayor Bloomberg Uses Dead Teen to Bash Stop and Frisk Critics

But stop and frisk hasn't even gone anywhere yet

Alangreig/Foter.com

Michael Bloomberg's at it again, using dead bodies as proxies for policy discussion. The shooting of a Bronx teenager last week gave him an opportunity to continue bashing critics of stop and frisk. Via the Daily News:

"(The candidates) never had responsibility for public safety and strategy and are putting ideology and election-year politics above public safety," he [Bloomberg] said, without naming names.

The candidates and other critics of stop-and-frisk are quick to trash the police, he said, but all were silent last week when 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant was shot to death in the Bronx.

"After his murder, there was no outrage from the Center for Constitutional Rights or the NYCLU," a disgusted Bloomberg said, referring to two groups that vehemently oppose the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy.

In Mike Bloomberg's head, the made up and emotion-laden "right not to be shot" trumps the actual constitutional and civil right not to be molested by a government agent. His concern over dead children only goes so far; the killing of Ramarley Graham by a police officer over a dime bag of marijuana last year yielded no change of heart from Bloomberg on the senseless drug war his department wages on a daily basis, destroying families and taking lives.

As for his insinuation that stop and frisk could've saved the life of Alphonza Bryant; stop and frisk, while it is on trial, has not been suspended, so the argument is spectacularly cynical. (The department has defended the program in trial by saying their cops were too lazy to be productive without it) The millions of stop and frisks that have been conducted, meanwhile, only yielded a gun fewer than .5 percent of the time.  Some champion of civil liberties.

h/t Restoras

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

He’s truly sick, isn’t he? What’s wrong with New York that they’d keep electing someone like that?

[wareagle]

your second question answers itself, doesn’t it?

[JD the elder]

As I said in the other place, people mostly want safe streets and cheap bread & circuses, and think it would be nice if the mayor threw them and their philosophy a rhetorical bone once in a while, but everything beyond that is just noise. By those standards, unfortunately, Bloomberg is doing pretty well. Crime is down (not that Bloomy is personally responsible for that, of course), the city’s doing OK overall, and Bloomberg floats leftist-pleasing ideas like restricting soda sizes.

[Suthenboy]

Restoras posted a link to this in an earlier thread, so I will just repeat my comment from there.

“Bloomberg accused mayoral hopefuls of putting concerns about police stop-and-frisk tactics ahead of children’s lives.”

Do I understand this correctly? The blatantly illegal stop and frisk program was being implemented when Alphonza Bryant was murdered?

Isnt there a saying…..something about trading liberty for security ? I cant remember how it goes.

Bloomburg truly is a parody of the liberal fascist.

[Auric Demonocles]

Restoras doesn’t even earn an adjective. You should really step up your comments for actual posts.

[Pro Libertate]

We can be plenty safe and free at the same time, so it’s a false dichotomy, posed by people who want to control everything.

[Auric Demonocles]

In Mike Bloomberg’s head, the made up and emotion-laden “right not to be shot”

I actually agree that this is a right. That’s why there are murder and assault laws in NYC.

[Pro Libertate]

And they have cops and things to help prevent crime, right? Or are they do busy doing something other than trying to prevent crime?

[Auric Demonocles]

They are busy fighting the crime of cigarette smuggling.

[Jordan]

Nah, they’re too busy leaving purses out on park benches and arresting people who come and pick them up. No, I’m not making that shit up.

[Pro Libertate]

In all seriousness, is urban concentration on the scale of these larger cities inherently unconducive to freedom?

[Auric Demonocles]

I think the evidence points to yes.

[Pro Libertate]

It sure seems that way. Which is why all good libertarians should move to Nunavut. Nunavut, open skies, roadless splendor. Nunavut, few people, endless resources. Freedom is a dish best served cold.

[Auric Demonocles]

I’m not sure there are enough ginger women in Nunavut for my tastes. But I am well evolved to do with the cold.

I got a sunburn on Sunday because I took an hour long nap on my porch. In April. In Boston.

[Pro Libertate]

Save thousands on sunscreen! You won’t need it in Nunavut.

And what woman could resist a man who owns 10,000 acres of beachfront land? That’s affordable in Nunavut.

[Jordan]

According to the NYC brass, they’re too busy eating donuts and sleeping in their cars.

[wareagle]

cops don’t prevent crime; they never have. They respond to calls of crime having occurred, occasionally they investigate it. But most prevention is done by regular citizens, who sometimes find themselves treated like criminals in the aftermath.

[JD the elder]

According to Bloomberg, you can’t question what the cops are doing, either, because that would prevent them from doing their jobs properly. So you just have to take the whole thing on faith – which is a polite way of saying “shut up, peon, you don’t get to question your betters”.

[Irish]

I actually agree that this is a right.

I don’t. A right has to be 100% enforceable. You have a right to free speech. This can be easily enforced by the government not targeting free speech. The right to bear arms can be easily enforced by not taking guns away.

The right to not be shot can’t be strictly enforced because someone can do it anytime. So the only way to enforce the ‘right not to be shot’ is to take away peoples’ other rights.

It’s the same with a right to healthcare or that stupid as fuck ‘right to be free from fear’ nonsense that liberals bring up once in a while. The first one can’t be enforced without removing the rights of other people, particularly in regards to property rights, and the second is unenforceable, period.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Bloomie’s perfect gun-free society you have the right not to be shot, but you do have the right to be stabbed.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news…..89242.html

[Restoras]

Thanks for h/t, Ed!

[Eduard van Haalen]

“His concern over dead children only goes so far”

It only applies to children outside the womb, if then.

Not only does he boast of his support for abortion “rights,” he denounced politicians who “try to nuance themselves away from that commitment [to abortion] in the interest of political expediency.”

To Bloombert, it seems “nuance” is the nastiest n-word in the language.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Cel…..ortion.htm

[The Late P Brooks]

The millions of stop and frisks that have been conducted, meanwhile, only yielded a gun fewer than .5 percent of the time.

The WSJ “weekend interview” or whatever they call it was a revolting worshipful tongue bath of Ray Kelly. He claimed the cops have a preternatural ability to pluck cheap gunsels out of a crowd with their incredible tingly Spidey-senses honed by years of totally justifiably trampling the rights of lowlifes.

The manner in which it was phrased made it sound as if there is a gun “taken off the streets” at least 75% of the time a stop and frisk is carried out. And those other guys leave their rods at home because they know they cannot evade the dragnet.

[Robert]

How does he know who was silent after someone was killed? What does Bloomberg do, listen in on everyone to get their rxns to crime news?

[ant1sthenes]

Well, fortunately he’s now drawing a direct line between the dead-baby pimping of the gun grabbers and the dead-baby pimping of the SWPL Jim Crow movement, so maybe he can help tarnish both among moderates and actual liberals.