Ignoring the Times, To Keep NYC Safe

THOUGH Mayor Bloomberg often appears to be leading the charge on some of modern liberalism’s pet governing projects, there is a line that he will absolutely not cross: the sentiment, expressed often by The New York Times, that the city should reverse its successful policing tactics.

The most recent controversy centers on the NYPD’s socalled “stop and frisk” policy, in which police step up their search for weapons in highcrime neighborhoods by checking the persons of some residents of these neighborhoods when following leads.

The Times has declared war on the NYPD’s effective policies, but even a May editorial, in which the Times suggested New York follow Philadelphia’s lead and constrain its use of the tactic, was too much for Bloomberg:

“Why would any rational person want to trade what we have here for the situation in Philadelphia?” Bloomberg told NY1. “More murders, higher crime. Is that what the Times wants?”

The controversy was back in the news this week. The Times has written a series of stories accusing the NYPD of racism be cause they stop minorities so often, and on Monday published the results of the paper’s own poll showing that respondents think the NYPD favors whites.

But even within this poll, in which the Times seeks to make and shape news rather than just report it, there is some inconvenient information for opponents of effective policing and lower crime:

“Bloomberg and the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, received high marks on the crime issue: 57 percent of New Yorkers said they approved of the way the mayor was dealing with crime, and 61 percent said they approved of the way the commissioner was handling his job. Even 50 percent of the respondents who said they had been the target of a racially motivated police stop approved of Mr. Kelly’s management,” the Times wrote.

“‘I live in Brooklyn, in Coney Island, and everybody has guns; 3yearold kids have guns! It’s outrageous,’” said Johnny Rivera, 52, a former foreman at an aluminum company. As for the stopandfrisk practice, he said, ‘the worst thing they could do is stop it.’ ”

The NYPD has had enough of the ignorant abuse from the Times, and responded on its Facebook page to the charge: “During the first 10 years of the Bloomberg Administration there were 5,430 murders compared to 11,058 in the 10 years prior, a reduction of 51% or 5,628 lives saved. If history is a guide, the vast majority of those lives saved were young men of color.”

Indeed, history is just such a guide. As Steven Malanga noted in City Journal in 2007, Rudy Giuliani, whose mayoralty led the policing revolution that eventually made New York one of the safest cities in the country, was also accused of such bias. But contrary to those accusations, under Giuliani the NYPD reduced crime while also reducing shootings by police and claims of excessive force dramatically. And guess who benefited the most? As Malanga wrote:

“Giuliani’s policing success was a boon to minority neighborhoods. For instance, in the city’s 34th Precinct, covering the largely Hispanic Washington Heights section of Manhattan, murders dropped from 76 in 1993, Dinkins’s last year, to only seven by Giuliani’s last year, a decline of more than 90 percent. Far from being the racist that activists claimed, Giuliani had delivered to the city’s minority neighborhoods a true form of equal protection under the law.”

The NYPD goes where the danger is. For that, they should be praised — and usually are.

Times editorialists have been railing against policing that has saved thousands of lives in New York’s minority neighborhoods. The paper’s reporting has been so inaccurate and agendadriven it has led Michael Bloomberg to wonder aloud if what the Times wants is more murder in the city.

That may sound harsh, but the great breakthrough of Giuliani’s time in office was his realization that you cannot govern effectively unless you ignore The New York Times.

Nowhere is that more important, or with higher stakes, than the effort to keep New Yorkers safe.