Officers in the New York City Police Department recently concluded a work slowdown as an unofficial protest against Mayor Bill de Blasio. They believe that the mayor’s comments in support of demonstrations following the non-indictment of the officer who killed Eric Garner led to the horrifying murders of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos — two officers in Brooklyn — by a deranged gunman on Dec. 20. Tensions rose between the police department and the mayor’s office, with officers turning their backs on de Blasio during public appearances and ultimately conducting a work slowdown where they declined to pursue low-level crimes.
To think Mayor de Blasio and everyone protesting police violence are to blame for an insane man murdering police officers is unfair and unreasonable. Violent, unstable people do not need a reason to do violent, unstable things. When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, he did it in an effort to impress the actress Jodie Foster; however, no reasonable person would blame the actions of such a mentally ill man on Foster.
The tantrums by the NYPD stem from comments the mayor made about telling his son to “take extra care” when dealing with the police. Mayor de Blasio committed an unpardonable sin by advising his biracial son to be respectful toward police officers and is now facing the wrath of those very same officers.
The irony doesn’t stop there. In reaction to this perceived affront, officers chose to do exactly what critics have been advocating for years: ending heavy-handed policing. After years of policies like Broken Windows and Stop-and-Frisk, a police slowdown should come as a relief to many New Yorkers. The problem with overzealous policing of low-level crimes is that it disproportionately targets minorities and poor communities.
The Stop-and-Frisk program was especially disastrous, and Mayor de Blasio’s efforts to end it are one of the NYPD’s grievances against him. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, around 90 percent of the people subjected to Stop-and-Frisk were black or Latino. Minorities were disproportionately targeted even in predominantly white neighborhoods. Plus, weapons were found in less than .02 percent of all searches. This goes to show that these policies are not only discriminatory but also ineffective.
Consequences of this type of aggressive policing can even be found here at ASU. Back in May, English professor Ersula Ore was videotaped being thrown to the ground and arrested during an altercation with a police officer who had stopped her for jaywalking. It defies reason to suggest that such heavy-handed enforcement of low-level crimes creates a safer community for us, when in reality it leads to minorities bearing the brunt of these efforts.
By turning a blind eye toward low-level crimes, the NYPD is doing what they should have been doing all along. If this had always been their policy, Eric Garner would probably still be alive. But because he was a big African-American man suspected of selling loose cigarettes, officers believed that he was enough of a threat to merit a fatal chokehold. If Officer Stewart Ferrin hadn't thrown Ore to the ground over a minute jaywalking incident, he would still be employed.
While it is thoroughly unprofessional for those particular police officers to believe that being criticized is reason enough to neglect their duty, it’s important for us to consider adopting police slowdowns as actual policy. For all its rhetorical appeal, being “tough on crime” has been shown to produce disastrous results, from being used to justify unnecessary deadly force and adopting unconstitutional programs that terrorize communities.
Reach the columnist at hneidig@asu.edu or follow @hneidig on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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