Trump Wants 'Stop And Frisk' Back? NYC Shootings Are Lower Than Ever In 2016, Murders Are Down Too

Trump Wants 'Stop And Frisk' Back? NYC Shootings Are Lower Than Ever In 2016, Murders Are Down Too
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Before we get into the lies and racial dog whistles about ‘inner cities’ spouted by popular vote loser Donald Trump, let’s start with facts and the truth. The truth is we have good news. New York City just released its data on crime in 2016 and the number of shootings dropped below 1,000 (out of a population of over 8.4 million, up from just over 7 million in 1980). This is a lower figure than in any year since the NYPD began keeping comprehensive records on shootings one-quarter century ago.

The drop appears to be driven by the department’s focus on decreasing gang violence, as gang shootings went from 560 in 2015 to 412 in 2016. Even more impressively, murders related to gang violence fell from 129 to 79—a drop of almost 40 percent.

Overall, the number of murders dropped from 352 in 2015 to 335 this past year. Violent crime as a whole also hit a record low in 2016, falling 4 percent from the previous low reached in 2015. Let’s put these developments into the context of New York’s move away from “stop and frisk.”

The city’s approach to stop and frisk was found unconstitutional in 2013. Does it surprise anyone that Trump claimed the opposite was true in the first presidential debate? In 2013 the NYPD was already starting to lower the number of stops, which have plummeted since Bill de Blasio became mayor in 2014. Additionally, the number of arrests for marijuana possession—which, as with stop and frisk, saw black and Latino New Yorkers disproportionately affected—went from 51,000 in 2011 to a 20-year low of under 17,000 in 2015, although they did go back up some in early 2016. These are important steps in making New York a more just place.

In terms of actual public safety, reducing the number of police stops by more than 95 percent as well as the number of people arrested for marijuana possession by two-thirds did not make New Yorkers any less safe. The last four years all have seen fewer murders than in any year since 1963, the first year the NYPD started keeping solid numbers on murder.

What New York has shown over the past four years is that the police can keep people safe by focusing on actual wrongdoers instead of throwing just about every young black and brown male living in a lower-income area up against a wall. It’s true that the NYPD and the criminal justice system, even under de Blasio, are far from perfect when it comes to protecting civil rights. But the city has shown real improvement, and that matters a great deal.David M. Kennedy, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, summed up what the rise and fall of stop and frisk in New York means:

New York City, in many ways, convinced the rest of the country that things like zero tolerance were the way to make communities safe. And now it’s showing the country that you absolutely do not need to do that, you should not do it, and there are much, much better and less damaging ways to work with communities to produce public safety.

Now let’s compare the facts to what Trump has been slinging. At that presidential debate, he brought up the matter of whether New York’s stop and frisk policy was constitutional as part of his call to not only reinstitute it in New York, but implement it all over America. More broadly, Trump spoke about America’s cities in a way that bears no resemblance to reality:

Well, first of all, Secretary Clinton doesn't want to use a couple of words, and that's law and order. And we need law and order. If we don't have it, we're not going to have a country. [snip] We have a situation where we have our inner cities, African- Americans, Hispanics are living in he'll because it's so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot. In Chicago, they've had thousands of shootings, thousands since January 1st. Thousands of shootings. And I'm saying, where is this? Is this a war-torn country? What are we doing? And we have to stop the violence. We have to bring back law and order.

Make no mistake, this was a campaign dog whistle designed to raise the fears of white Americans about crime and disorder, and to put himself forth as the only one who could save them.

There are some cities, like Chicago, that are experiencing a significant uptick in violent crime. It will take serious analysis by experts to fully determine why that is. Chicago Police Chief Eddie Johnson cited an increase in gang activity as well as lax gun laws. It certainly doesn’t help that so many guns come in from outside the city and state. But the data from New York show that Trump’s proposal to bring back stop and frisk is not the answer.

Here’s Mayor de Blasio this week, at a press conference announcing his city’s data: “President Trump is wrong about stop and frisk, I told him that to his face.” In September, after Trump made the aforementioned remarks at the debate, the mayor also pushed back: “On this issue he has no legitimacy. Back then we had to prove we could make the city safe without stop and frisk, and we’ve proven that.”

The same communities who were most hurt by stop and frisk are also the ones most hurt by violent crime. Latino Americans are more than twice as likely to be murdered as whites, while African Americans—about one-eighth of the population—make up half of all murder victims. Black and Latino communities deserve effective policing that saves lives while at the same time treating its law-abiding citizens—who make up the overwhelming majority—the same way it treats all other Americans.

Donald Trump is wrong, both on the facts and on the policies we should be pursuing. We cannot let him force us into a false choice between protecting people from crime and protecting their civil rights. If our Constitution means anything, we must do both.

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