New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has suffered setbacks regarding the NYPD‘s “stop-and-frisk” policy, this after the City Council overrode and voted against his veto of bills designed to curtail the practice. Attacking the New York Times earlier this year, and later President Barack Obama via an op-ed, Bloomberg is now on the offensive.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that stop-and-frisk is unconstitutional but the City filed an appeal immediately after. Yesterday (August 22) afternoon, the City Council voted into law two standing bills, one of which would make it easier to sue NYPD over racial profiling. Bloomberg has been adamant about keeping stop-and-frisk as a police standard, despite countering evidence the tactic isn’t producing better results. The mayor is now undertaking another fight.
In the Times piece, also released yesterday, Bloomberg switched gears in the piece which showed former support for Obama while voicing his criticism of the president’s position on the tobacco industry.
From the Times:
Last year I endorsed President Obama for re-election largely because of his commitment to putting science and public health before politics. But now the Obama administration appears to be on the verge of bowing to pressure from a powerful special-interest group, the tobacco industry, in a move that would be a colossal public health mistake and potentially contribute to the deaths of tens of millions of people around the world.
Although the president’s signature domestic issue has been health-care reform, his legacy on public health will be severely tarnished — at a terrible cost to the poor in the developing world — unless his administration reverses course on this issue.
Bloomberg’s column is curious, since he’s accused the Times of racial bias in the past because of his stance that stop-and-frisk is a helpful tool; he also said the major news outlet is selective of its coverage of minority crimes.
As his mayoral post is soon to come to an end, Bloomberg’s last few administrative moves has the billionaire politician licking his wounds in defeat.
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Photo: City of New York
