Now through a good run of consecutive work days after the long vacation. It\u2019s been a fast summer with alternating binges of fun and job with no real mixing or straddling of the two. One or the other it seems.<\/p>\n
The NYC mayor\u2019s race is heating up and it\u2019s going about as I thought it would. Three separate elections spanning eight weeks will settle the outcome. Voter turnout will be lousy (probably no better than 25-percent) despite what\u2019s at stake. Some will justify failure to carve a half-hour somewhere out of three Tuesday\u2019s to fulfill an important civic duty because of the ridiculous notion this is a lackluster field of candidates. Not true. There\u2019s some interesting, well-qualified and articulate public servants in this race. It\u2019s almost certain the next mayor of New York City will be nothing like the one we have now. For better or worse. Probably for worse.<\/p>\n
I got a knock on my door a week ago Saturday from state senator Jose Peralta who was campaigning on behalf of Bill Thompson. When I looked through the peephole,. I felt a tinge of weirdness given the taint linked to Peralta after government investigators caught him on tape at the home of snitch and felon Shirley Huntley. After a gulp, I opened my door. Peralta held a clipboard with one hand and shook my hand with the other. I told him I was voting deBlasio in the primary but would turn to Thompson in the run-off should deBlaz fail to crack the top two.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s alright having a second choice,\u201d said Peralta. We parted ways without me asking what the heck he was doing at Huntley\u2018s house when it was clear to the world she was bad news.<\/p>\n
A week later, dozens of unionized hotel workers flooded my neighborhood to work the endless blocks of six-story apartment buildings housing tens of thousands of registered Dems. The New York Hotel Trades Council is a powerful force in city politics and has endorsed Christine Quinn who remains the favorite to win this thing.<\/p>\n
All of the major Democratic Party candidates have been strongly outspoken against a tactic that is the centerpiece of the NYPD\u2019s aggressive and successful effort to keep handguns off the streets. Known as \u201cstop and frisk,\u201c police officers in NYC have escalated use of the controversial strategy over two decades of rule under Giuliani and Bloomberg. Cops have flooded what were once high-crime areas to make it clear that the city\u2019s very punitive gun possession laws will be enforced. How do you know if somebody is carrying a gun? You check their waistband. Their pockets. And then you let \u2019em go if they don\u2019t have one.<\/p>\n
A federal judge asked to consider the constitutionality of such a strategy heard nine weeks of testimony between March and May of the current year.<\/p>\n
In a 198-page decision<\/a> issued 8-12-13, US District judge Shira Scheindlin cited protections in the 4th and 14th Amendment to the US Constitution en route to concluding that liberty trumps public safety in this divisive debate. Scheindlin\u2019s opinion is free of complicated mumbo-jumbo. It\u2019s extremely well-written and a pleasure to read. Scheindlin doesn\u2019t argue against effectiveness of stop and frisk but rules it to be unconstitutional as it is currently administered. The judge says people of color are stopped at a disproportionately high rate and that the police often lack reasonable suspicion of criminal activity in advance of such stops.<\/p>\n I was stopped and questioned by police on a city street as part of this strategy. It happened on a Saturday night in my neighborhood here in Queens eight or nine years ago. I was walking along Roosevelt Avenue when two male officers in plainclothes raced up to me in an unmarked van as I prepared to cross 76th Street. The officer on the passenger side rolled down his window and asked what I was doing in the neighborhood. I told him I lived here. He then asked me where I was going. I told him I was walking to the subway station at 74th and Roosevelt. That was it. There was no frisk. The cops didn\u2019t even exit the vehicle. It was a stop and inquire that didn\u2019t lead to a frisk. A statistical analysis of 4.4 million such stops (between 2004 and 2012) examined by Scheindlin found that about half ended without a frisk. Why did I get stopped that night? Two factors: Rosie Ave at that time had long been a seedy stretch where illegal narcotics were sold and I\u2019m a white guy who sticks out a bit. The two cops took a shot that I was a bad seed and moved on once they got the impression I wasn\u2019t. Was there \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d prior to the stop? Scheindlin would probably say no. The current crop of mayoral candidates on the Dem side would say no. But personally, I\u2019m in sharp disagreement with all of them about stop and frisk. Rosie Avenue has been cleaned up without its soul being removed thanks in large part to stop and frisk. The wild west carnage that\u2019s happening in Chicago (even the Uptown neighborhood was littered with shells and stained by blood after a drive-by shooting last Monday night) is simply not tolerated here.<\/p>\n Just look at the numbers:<\/p>\n Chicago – population 2.7 million – 506 murders in 2012<\/p>\n New York City – population 8.3 million – 419 murders in 2012<\/p>\n While 2.3 million documented frisks in NYC between January 2004 and July 2012 yielded weapons just 1.5-percent of the time, how many guys with guns left them at home out of fear they\u2019d get stopped?<\/p>\n Scheindlin says cops use racial profiling to determine who to stop and frisk. The police counter nine out of ten suspects in the homicides investigated in 2012 were Black or Hispanic. I would simply say that the police here should be allowed to continue using stop and frisk when and where they see fit with a continuing emphasis on neighborhoods vulnerable to gun violence.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not black and maybe I don\u2019t have a full handle or appreciation for the sanctity of the two constitutional amendments cited by Sheindlin, but I hope this city\u2019s police force isn\u2019t overly constrained by her ruling. Should the city win on appeal, I\u2019d hope the next mayor keeps in place a hard-nosed anti-gun approach that includes tough and visible policing in parts of the city where they think people may possess and use firearms.<\/p>\n My departure from passionate prevailing thought on the political left on this issue prompted much re-consideration of my stand. For me, it comes down to grave concern about the kind of urban warfare unfolding in Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore. I\u2019ve heard some minimize what\u2019s happening in each of those three places by referring to it largely as \u201cblack on black\u201d crime. As if it\u2019s somehow not as bad.<\/p>\n What\u2019s worse? That kind of dismissive attitude that surrenders to contained chaos because it doesn\u2019t penetrate their cocoon – or one that acknowledges a firm law enforcement hand better shapes long-term movement away from the gun?<\/p>\n -Over-under action on the Jets\u2019 win total this season is moving in a way that will probably put the number at five and a half by the time the regular season starts. As it stands now at my book, the Jets over 6.5 returns 150 on a hundred and the under 6.5 costs $185 to win a hundred. Another tick or two on the under and you\u2019ll see Vegas drop it to 5.5 which says all you need to know about what kind of team the 2013 Jets will be. Perhaps the most surprising opportunity among all the NFL over-under plays is Seattle at 10.5. Play the under all the way for a hundred to win a hundred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Now through a good run of consecutive work days after the long vacation. It\u2019s been a fast summer with alternating binges of fun and job with no real mixing or straddling of the two. One or the other it seems. … Continue reading