besides the fact that this is wildly and provably false — Bloomberg was constantly challenged on SQF, including via many lawsuits — what practical purpose do apologies like this serve for the hundreds of thousands of ppl whose lives were altered by stop and frisk?
Do they get all those hours and all those missed appointments they lost back? Do they get their records expunged of all the bullshit charges they caught while resisting a stop or a frisk? Will they get any fines they were assessed returned to them?
Stop and frisks defenders — and Bloomberg was arguably the most vocal such person until just a few weeks ago and long after it had been ruled unconstitutional — like to talk abt it as this narrowly tailored policy/strategy that was meant to deter gun violence and crime.
In reality, it recovered almost no guns.
(Of the 686,000 stops in 2011 — the year NYC saw its highest number of stops — guns were recovered in 0.2% of all cases.)
“Contraband” was recovered in abt 10% of stops — which means 90 percent of those stops were baseless.
(Of the 686,000 stops in 2011 — the year NYC saw its highest number of stops — guns were recovered in 0.2% of all cases.)
“Contraband” was recovered in abt 10% of stops — which means 90 percent of those stops were baseless.
SQF defenders like Bloomberg praised it for lowering the crime rate in NYC.
But big cities that didn’t use SQF saw similar (and in some cases greater) drops in crime at the same period AND crime kept falling in NYC even after it ended/reduced the practice.
Oh.
But big cities that didn’t use SQF saw similar (and in some cases greater) drops in crime at the same period AND crime kept falling in NYC even after it ended/reduced the practice.
Oh.
Bloomberg has always cast himself as a kind of political pragmatist: he supports these things because they make sense and work.
But even as people pointed out all the problems with SQF using raw numbers and data — his putative language — he continued to defend it.
But even as people pointed out all the problems with SQF using raw numbers and data — his putative language — he continued to defend it.
Bloomberg was mayor of New York City and also its single wealthiest resident. (He was worth $20 billion around the time of his second election, and that number is way higher now.)
On the opposite end of the SES scale were all the eggs he had to break for his “safer” city.
On the opposite end of the SES scale were all the eggs he had to break for his “safer” city.
If you were Black or Latinx and male in a certain neighborhood, literally anything could be grounds for a stop. SQF reshaped life in Brownsville, which saw more stops than any other neighborhood in the city — one housing project saw more annual stops than it had *residents* 
I interviewed a young dude in 2012. He and his friends were dancing to Beyonce in Washington Square Park late one night. Cops rolled up, questioned them, went thru his backpack. The kid was queer and so the condom in his bag was evidence, the cops said, that he was a sex worker.
He spent the night in jail.
