A boastful comment made Tuesday by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his city's low crime rate is not being received well by Detroit's Mayor Dave Bing. Bloomberg's remarks, made over Twitter, unfavorably compared homicides in the two cities.
The Motor City's murder rate ranked as one the highest of all large U.S. cities for 2012. Detroit had 411 reported murders in 2012. It's population is 713,777, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. New York City's population is over 11 times larger, measuring in at 8,175,133 in 2010.
Mayor Bing struck a somber tone in an official response to Bloomberg.
“I think it is sad and inappropriate for anyone, especially public officials, to tout their crime-fighting efforts by highlighting other cities’ murder rates.
“There are dramatic differences between New York and Detroit.
“First, the City of New York has nearly 40,000 law enforcement officers, compared to less than 3,000 here in the City of Detroit.
“Secondly, New York has crime fighting techniques and resources such as ‘stop and frisk at will’ and a sophisticated surveillance system that we do not currently have in our crime fighting arsenal, in part due to the fact we are under a federal consent decree.
“We are all engaged in reducing violent crimes and we need to fight this battle together. Therefore, I support Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to get Congress to toughen gun laws so that gun violence is reduced in Detroit, New York, and across this country.”
In an address presented during the release of the 2012 crime figures, Bing called on Detroiters to help address the issue of violence in the community.
"If I had a thousand more police officers in the City of Detroit -- the way things are right now -- I don't know what kind of impact that would have," he said. "So I'm not asking for police officers. I am asking this community to be aware of some of the problems we're facing."
In March, he announced the establishment of an initiative called Detroit One, which aims at reducing gun related violent crime by 25 percent in 2013. The program's strategy combines multi-jurisdictional cooperation between law enforcement agencies and targeted policing with increased traffic enforcement and more police on the streets.
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