
We now know Michael Bloomberg is going to run for president. He’s turning himself into a pander bear.
During his three terms as New York City’s mayor, Bloomberg was famous for dismissing politically correct criticism and refusing to apologize for it.
But there he was on Sunday at an African-American megachurch in Brooklyn saying he was sorry for the stop-and-frisk policy he used so successfully to break the back of crime and reduce the murder rate in New York City by 50 percent.
Under stop-and-frisk, police officers were authorized to search people if they were suspected of illegal activity while carrying a weapon. Critics said the practice was disproportionately used against black and Hispanics. After Bloomberg left office in 2013, a judge ruled that the tactic had been used unconstitutionally. Bloomberg denounced the decision of Bill de Blasio, his successor as mayor, to dramatically reduce stop-and-frisk.
But on Sunday and six years after he left office, there was Bloomberg saying:
Because of the number of stops of innocent people, because it had been so high, resentment had built up. We eroded what we had worked so hard to build: trust. Trust between police and communities, trust between you and me.
And the erosion of that trust bothered me deeply. And it still bothers me. And I want to earn it back. . . .
I got something important wrong. I got something important really wrong. I didn’t understand that back then — the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino community. . . . I want you to know that I realize back then I was wrong. And I am sorry.
Bloomberg’s retreat is more than a complete reversal of his previous views, it’s an attempt to earn votes in the coming Democratic presidential primaries in which left-wing activists exercise disproportionate influence.
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See Also:
(2) Bloomberg’s Apology For Stop, Question, And Frisk Is Shameful