Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has filed court papers seeking to drop an appeal of a judge’s decision ordering major reforms to the police department’s stop-and-frisk policy.
The papers were filed Thursday in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
A judge ruled last year that the New York Police Department had discriminated against blacks and Hispanics with how it went about stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking people on the street. The judge ordered major reforms to the department’s implementation of the policy.
Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed the decision. But de Blasio, who took office at the beginning of the year, is now seeking to drop the appeal.
But the case isn’t over yet: Police unions are seeking to intervene and carry on the appeal.
(AP)
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3 Responses
He’s clever. The Appellate court already said it would probably overturn the lower court decision. The Democrats desperately want to lose the case since they need to give up on “stop and frisk” since many of those stopped are loyal supporters, but doing so unilaterally will open them up to blame as crime rises. This way De Blasio can blame the court for the increase in crime. Whether the union has standing is dubious, since the mayor is in charge of policy and can cancel anything that exists solely as a implementation of the administrative will of the city (unlike legislation).
For all of you who miss the days of Mayor Dinkins, they are about to return. Those were the days my friends, we thought they had reached an end, we’d sing and riot forever and a day,. . .
If the current mayor and/or police commissioner want to stop stop-and-frisk, they can do so with or without an appeal of the pending case. It makes sense to drop the appeal since the current administration has no desire to continue stop-and-frisk, and therefore no need to devote financial resources to an appeal.
Commenter No. 1’s reference to rising crime is his/her speculation only, unsupported by any facts. Also unsupported by any facts is commenter no. 1’s speculation about Mayor DeB’s plan to blame the courts for a rise in crime if it happens. Every mayor knows that voters hold him/her responsible for crime rates.
As for commenter no. 1’s suggestion that the targets of stop-and-frisk are supporters of Mayor DeB, that is also his/her unfounded speculation, but it would be wholly appropriate for the targets of improper stop-and-frisk to seek political redress of their maltreatment. Perhaps commenter no. 1 would expect them to respond in some criminal fashion.