Audio and video of Michael Bloomberg discussing crime was released today. Democrats didn't like it. Why? Because it accurately describes a problem they would sooner wish away. Namely, that most violent crime is committed by a specific demographic: young black males.
Further, aggressive policing lowers crime.
Michael Bloomberg knows this. It's why he was able to carry on the good work of Rudy Giuliani when he was elected Mayor of New York City, driving crime down to levels not seen since the 1950s in 2013. Police performed over 650,000 stop-and-frisks per year during that time. Murders dropped from roughly 650 per year when Bloomberg took office to just over 300 when he left.
Great job, Mike. But don't you know you can't be honest (or tough on crime) and expect the left to embrace you? From comments at a 2015 forum in Aspen:
95% of your murders and murderers, and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all of the cops. They are male, minorities, 15 to 25. That's true in New York, that's true in virtually every city in America. That's where the real crime is.
...People say, "Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities." Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true, why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is.
And the way you get the guns out of the kids' hands is, you throw them up against a wall and frisk them.
--Michael Bloomberg
Of course, Twitter exploded, with #BloombergIsRacist trending past 60,000 tweets at the time of writing. His comments are captured in the two tweets below. This was a known issue for the campaign, and in fact Bloomberg apologized for stop-and-frisk policies just two months ago.
Big mistake. Never apologize to the left, that's like waving a cape at a snorting bull.
To anyone not completely blinded by the liberal narrative, what Bloomberg had to say isn't controversial. Violent crime statistics are very clear: according to the FBI, 52% of violent crime is committed by blacks, who comprise 13% of the population. The vast majority of those crimes are committed by males, lowering the number to 6.5%, and the vast majority of black male crime is committed by young blacks, so the number falls even further.
In other words, half of violent crime in the U.S. is committed by less than 5% of the population, not 13%. That's not controversial to a rational person, it's just an unfortunate fact.
The goal of a healthy, functioning society is to address the cause of the problem and fix it. For instance, the legacy of Democratic Great Society programs (welfare, food stamps, housing) is the destruction of the black family unit. The number of single-parent families in 1964 was 24%. As of 2018 it was 77%. Liberal policies have utterly failed black America.
These are systemic issues that must be addressed (by conservatives). In the meantime, prevention of crime is of paramount importance, the cornerstone of the social compact civilians make with law enforcement officers.
Bloomberg inherited a great success from Rudy Giuliani: a safer New York City. Elected to clean up the mess made by David Dinkins, Republican Giuliani hired Bill Bratton as NYPD Commissioner. Bratton was a disciple James Wilson and George Kelling's "Broken Windows Theory," which posits that the enforcement of laws around small crimes like subway fare-beating lower the likelihood of more serious crimes.
"I think we disproportionately stop whites too much, and minorities too little."
Michael Bloomberg
It worked. Bloomberg was right to maintain course on Broken Windows, but he went further. He wanted to take the fight against crime to the very neighborhoods where it happens most often. With Commissioner Ray Kelly as his enforcer, Bloomberg implemented "stop and frisk," the practice of identifying likely criminals and frisking them in public. If the suspect is carrying a gun or any contraband, voila--potential crime averted, and de facto criminal caught.
The problem with Bloomberg's policy in New York wasn't racism, it was the widespread violation of the 4th Amendment. Unlawful search and seizure is the issue on which we should judge the billionaire candidate. It's a preview of what a Bloomberg presidency might look like: a nanny state that rejects the constitution. Consider why he embraced the illegal search of citizens. It was to take their guns.
Hundreds of guns were confiscated each year that stop-and-frisk was the law in New York.
Bloomberg isn't a racist--he is, in his mind, a king. Constitutional amendments don't apply to King Mike. It's not just your Big Gulp he wants. It's your guns.
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[…] onto which voters could project their hopes. Yes, there were the quotes about 15-25 year-olds and crime committed by minorities in urban areas. While it was surprising to hear a politician be so candid, at least Bloomberg’s quotes were […]