If you had to give up some of your personal freedom to reduce the deadly violence in your neighborhood, would you?
Would you be willing, for instance, to put up with the indignity that comes with a stop-and-frisk policing strategy?
New Yorkers can now boast that out-of-town guests don’t have to worry about getting mugged during a sightseeing excursion.
But safety came at a steep price.
For years, New Yorkers were embroiled in a battle over the merits of the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy.
In 2013, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the city’s aggressive policing strategy was unconstitutional. The court concluded that in many instances police officers were stopping blacks and Hispanics because of their race and not because they were suspected of criminal activity.
Civil rights groups that had long opposed the policy celebrated the ruling as a major victory.
And when Bill de Blasio took the mayor’s office, he fulfilled his campaign promise by moving quickly to reform stop-and-frisk.
But three weeks ago, de Blasio found himself defending his decision to dial down stop-and-frisk.
