Bloomberg Falsely Claims He “Cut Back” Stop-And-Frisk

NBC News reports:



Bloomberg again claimed that he reined in the use of stop-and-frisk after it got “out of control” when he was mayor of New York. “We let it get out of control, and when I realized that, I cut it back by 95 percent, and I’ve apologized and asked for forgiveness,” he said.

This is still a false representation. Bloomberg championed and expanded the stop-and-frisk policing practice — the strategy that gave police the authority to detain people suspected of committing a crime, which led to a practice of stopping mostly black and Hispanic men — during his three terms of mayor.

The practice was scaled back significantly thanks to a 2013 court order declaring the policy unconstitutional, not Bloomberg’s change of heart.