Torn pols in frisk fracas
DEFYING MAYOR Bloomberg and his top cop, Raymond Kelly, the City Council was set to pass two bills Wednesday night to rein in the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk.
In a dramatic late-night session, the Council debated the highly charged bills, one to create an inspector general to oversee the Police Department and the other to allow people to sue over racial profiling by cops.
The Council was also set to override Mayor Bloomberg’s veto of a bill to force city businesses to offer paid sick days to workers, and approve the $70 billion city budget.
Supporters and opponents of the racial-profiling bill staked their positions passionately.
“There have been a lot of baldfaced lies told about this bill,” said Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), in a speech urging lawmakers who have never experienced being black, Latino, gay, Muslim, or in another profiled group to “please listen to us.”
“We can have safety and can have police accountability at the exact same time,” he said. “If you don’t live there, if you haven’t been going through it . . . please side with us.”
Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens) recalled being stopped and frisked as a teen, which he said “dehumanized” him. “I was scared. Today I’m not scared . . . I have a chance to do something about it,” he said.
Councilman Peter Vallone (DQueens) said the bill “will give every person subject to any police policy an automatic right to sue without any allegation of wrongdoing.”
“It will achieve the ultimate goal of this bill, to put judges in charge of the NYPD,” he said. “When the courts are in charge, we will become Chicago, we will become Detroit. Crime will soar, murder will rise, children will die.”
And Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens) denounced the bills as “an outrage.”
“I want to live in a safe city. I want to live in a city that is free from fear. I want to live in a city where my family and my neighbors aren’t terrorized — not by police officers, but by the violent criminals.”
In a last-ditch effort to sway Council members, Bloomberg’s counsel, Michael Best, wrote in a letter to legislators that despite a series of recent changes, the bills “would seriously impede the ability of the Police Department and the city to protect 8.4 million New Yorkers” and invite an “avalanche of new lawsuits against police action.”