Throw them up against the wall': Leaked recording of Bloomberg defending stop and frisk resurfaces
Newly uncovered audio of 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg depicts the former New York City mayor defending the controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which he enacted while in office. The 2015 recording comes from a speaking event Bloomberg attended at the Aspen Institute, during which he acknowledged that the policy disproportionately affected minorities and defended it.
“Ninety-five percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg said. “They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed." “So one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is," he continued.
Audio of @MikeBloomberg’s 2015 @AspenInstitute speech where he explains that “you can just Xerox (copy)” the description of male, minorities 16-25 and hand to cops. Bloomberg had video of speech blocked. Bloomberg went on to argue that stop and frisk was a necessary policy to save lives because it forced people to leave their weapons at home so they couldn't be charged with carrying it. “And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them. And then they start. ’Oh, I don’t want to get caught,’ so they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home," he said.
Following the event, Bloomberg representatives requested that the Aspen Institute not distribute footage of the speech, and the organization obliged. “We basically honor the wishes of our speakers, and Mayor Bloomberg preferred that we not use the video for broadcast,” the institute’s chief external affairs officer Jim Spiegelman said in a statement to the Aspen Times. “He did not give a reason, nor did we have any reason to ask for one. We often feature speakers who prefer that their presentations not be videotaped.” The comments echoed a familiar pattern for the former mayor. In a radio appearance with WOR-NY host John Gambling in 2013, he said, “I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little.”
Back in November, before he officially declared his candidacy for the 2020 presidential election, Bloomberg apologized for the policy — a reversal from his numerous defenses. “I got something important really wrong. I didn’t understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities," the former mayor stated. "I was totally focused on saving lives. But as we know: Good intentions aren’t good enough."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/throw-them-up-against-the-wall-leaked-recording-of-bloomberg-defending-stop-and-frisk-resurfaces
https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1226973723720396808
https://www.aspentimes.com/news/michael-bloomberg-blocks-footage-of-aspen-institute-appearance/
https://twitter.com/upmtn/status/1227087712634724352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
'I was wrong': Bloomberg apologizes for stop-and-frisk
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/i-was-wrong-bloomberg-apologizes-for-stop-and-frisk