Democrats vying to succeed Mayor Bloomberg can expect their views toward his stop-and-frisk policy to be a key campaign issue this year, according to the leader of the nation’s most influential civil-rights group.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said his organization “will encourage every resident of the city to make stop-and-frisk one of the top issues.”
Jealous trashed the policy — which Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly credit with a major reduction in crime across the city — when he spoke at Nazarene Congregational Church in Brooklyn yesterday.
Helayne Seidman
Benjamin Jealous
The NAACP will pressure the candidates to commit to ending the policy, which Jealous said is akin to “racial profiling.”
He also called Bloomberg and Kelly “villains” for expanding the practice over the past 11 years.
“We intend to ensure through every legal means that stop-and-frisk becomes a thing of the past with the next mayor of this town.”Bloomberg and Kelly say police officers do not engage in profiling when they stop, question and search suspects believed to be carrying weapons.
“In New York City, fewer young men are being killed or shot and fewer are going to jail than ever before,” City Hall spokesman John McCarthy said yesterday.
Three of the four major Democratic candidates — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former city Comptroller Bill Thompson — have all said the practice should be reformed but not scrapped. Quinn has yet to take a position on a package of bills before the Council to scale back the program.
City Comptroller John Liu wants to abolish stop-and-frisk altogether.
Jealous also said he wants the next mayor to get rid of Kelly, who consistently polls higher among Democrats than any elected official.
Quinn has signaled she would keep Kelly on board if she won the race and Kelly was willing to stay.
Her competitors in the primary have not made the same commitment.
sally.goldenberg@nypost.com
Campaign at your own ‘frisk’
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Campaign at your own ‘frisk’
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Campaign at your own ‘frisk’
