Joe Lhota denies 'race-baiting,' defends stop-and-frisk
theGRIO Q&A - TheGrio sat down with Lhota days before the final mayoral debate to discuss the controversial ad, his vision for the city and how he thinks stop-and-frisk can be applied fairly...
There has been historically, as you know, a disconnect between black New Yorkers and law enforcement. How would you work to build a better relationship between the two?
It has to get better. It’s not in the shape it should be.
Mayor Bloomberg has stopped having town hall meetings. That has to change. The city is divided into community boards. The mayor would pick one community board area a month, rotating from the different boroughs. He’d find the largest auditorium in that community, bring all the deputy mayors and all the commissioners from six o’clock till nine o’clock at night. No tickets. The entire community was invited to come for an opportunity to ask the mayor or the commissioners any question they want. The most important part of that, when I was there, was listening, because you heard what was really going on in the communities.
The next mayor needs to do that a lot more. I think the police commissioner needs to have separate town hall meetings and also attend the mayor’s meetings. We need to enhance the communication between the community and NYPD. It’s very, very important. We need commanding officers who understand what the community needs and the community to understand what the commanding officer needs.
Also See: Federal appeals court blocks ruling on NY police stop-frisk policy
Please lay out what effective and constitutionally sound policing would look like under your administration?
Stopping someone based on racial profiling – because [of] the color of their skin or the fact that their pants are hanging down too low – that’s a violation of someone’s civil rights. It’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution; illegal search and seizure. That cop not only should be disciplined, but should be separated from service. No if, ands or buts about it. I’m going to get in trouble with the police union for saying that but I don’t care. Anybody who does that is wrong and should not wear a badge.
That being said, cops need to be trained and retrained and then retrained again. And the community needs to know what that training is. I understand that the community feels that stop-and-frisk has been abusive. Ray Kelly has actually dropped the number of stops by 40 percent and it should never get back to where it was or how it was being used. No one should be stopped for anything other than suspicious activity.
Isn’t there something wrong with the policy, however, when you see nearly 90 percent of stops not resulting in an arrest?
Remember, let’s go back to the court. Go back and read Terry v. Ohio. The Supreme Court fully understands that a stop doesn’t always end up in arrest because suspicious activity in and of itself is not a crime. The court, however, gave police officers the right to stop someone based on suspicious activity. If that suspicion turns out to not be correct, that person doesn’t get arrested.
