# NYC murder up this year, union in fight with mayor blames mayor **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2015, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824 "2015-06-05T07:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/21 "2015-06-07T15:36:39Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > That’s getting you a warning, Kobal2. Not only is it inappropriate, but it’s also putting words in another poster’s mouth. Don’t do it again. I agree that my post was provocative, deliberately so. Probably over the top, yes. I accept the warning. I disagree that I’m putting words in anybody’s mouth. I’m simply following the logic of the statement to its inevitable conclusion. The only noteworthy move De Blasio did wrt crime and policing was ending the so-called “stop and frisk” policy. It was ended because it was ineffectual and in practice demonstrably and overwhelmingly targeted minorities to the point of harassment. It may or may not have started thus, but in recent years it amounted to blatant racial profiling - which previous NYC mayor Bloomberg didn’t even bother denying. Arguing that the end of “stop and frisk” is the root cause of an uptick in murder ; that in fact such uptick constitutes a fully expected result of ending the policy equates with asserting that harassing random non-whites prevents murders, which in turn implies that non-whites are the ones doing all the murderin’ (without any factual support in this case, mind - just “common sense”). It’s a blinkered, simplistic (because that’s not how statistical analysis works) but fundamentally racist position to hold. Even if the poster doesn’t realize it. Either that or the poster is blissfully ignorant of what the hell they’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/22 "2015-06-07T16:31:45Z")
You’re assuming that stop and frisk policies weren’t applied to suspicious whites. I realize that the policy disproportionately targets minorities, but if the policy reduces murders by catching people illegally carrying weapons, and now we’re not catching as many, that means more people walking around with illegal weapons. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/23 "2015-06-07T16:39:22Z")
All policies have tradeoffs. When you end an effective public safety measure then you get more of what the measure was used to prevent. Even if it was only slightly effective, it had an effect. For example, TSA lets 95% of bombs and guns get through. But if you end the TSA, then 100% get through. And I’m pretty sure the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy gets better results than the TSA. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/24 "2015-06-07T16:54:29Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > All policies have tradeoffs. When you end an effective public safety measure then you get more of what the measure was used to prevent. Even if it was only slightly effective, it had an effect. This has not been demonstrated. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/25 "2015-06-07T16:57:30Z")
Interesting. Based on the thread title, I thought this was going to be about police engaging in work stoppage. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/26 "2015-06-07T17:06:05Z")
I find it incredible that any American would think not allowing police to just frisk citizens on hunches is equivalent to “hogtying” them. Why do you hate freedom? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/27 "2015-06-07T17:20:54Z")
I don’t, and I think it’s a perfectly fine policy to not allow stop and frisk. But freedom does have tradeoffs. The right to not be subject to arbitrary searches comes with the reality that felons will be able to carry illegal weapons in public. But let’s also be clear on the rationale for ending stop and frisk. The mayor and city council did not prepare the public by being honest about the tradeoffs. They all but promised that it was a costless policy change. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/28 "2015-06-07T17:22:43Z")
So no comments on my link showing that there’s not a correlation between reduction in stop-and-frisk and increased murder rates? Like, none at all? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/29 "2015-06-07T17:28:33Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The mayor and city council did not prepare the public by being honest about the tradeoffs. They all but promised that it was a costless policy change. This ignores the fact that the policy was declared unconstitutional by the courts. The De Blasio administration withdrew the appeal, but the fact remains. It’s rather odd to leave that out, since in all likelihood the policy would have been changed by judicial decree if the Mayor had decided to continue fighting in court. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/30 "2015-06-07T17:33:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > So no comments on my link showing that there’s not a correlation between reduction in stop-and-frisk and increased murder rates? Like, none at all? Is it your assertion that logic and fact can somehow overcome hysteria and partisan stupidity? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/31 "2015-06-07T18:29:54Z")
Micro-analyzing statistical noise is silliness. Last year NYC had its record low murder rate since the era of modern record keeping by the NYPD began in 1963. [This year](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/02/ferguson-crime-wave_n_7494372.html) city-wide it is up 15%. OMG! Then again. This year [Houston’s](http://www.click2houston.com/news/murders-in-houston-up-46-percent-from-2014/33386800) murder rate is up 46%. Chicago’s is up 17%, Atlanta’s is up 32%, Milwaukee 180%. San Francisco up over 200%! In that context NYC is doing pretty well. And unless De Blasio also changed policies in those cities as well it is hard to blame him or that specific policy change. In fact based on those cherries picked one could argue that the policy change prevented the increases sen in those cities! Saved them from the severity of this nation-wide “Ferguson effect” of increased murders as cops are afraid to police and anger of the underclass boils over … Of course however other cities have seen _drops_ too. The murder rate in [Dallas](http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/violent-crime-except-murder-remains-up-in-dallas-so-far-in-2015-property-crimes-mostly-down.html/) for example is down over 24% and last year was the record low there since 1930. As that first link points out, it ends up pretty much a wash, as many stats do when you get bigger sample sizes: adding up the largest 15 American cities there has overall been a 5% drop in homicides. And NYC remains way lower for murders per capita than other big cities. Real data has noise and hiccups, be it in stock prices or crime data. News cycles however have deadlines and stories to create: “nothing to see here” does not make great clickbait. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/32 "2015-06-07T20:07:58Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I don’t, and I think it’s a perfectly fine policy to not allow stop and frisk. But freedom does have tradeoffs. The right to not be subject to arbitrary searches comes with the reality that felons will be able to carry illegal weapons in public. > > But let’s also be clear on the rationale for ending stop and frisk. The mayor and city council did not prepare the public by being honest about the tradeoffs. They all but promised that it was a costless policy change. The mayor and the council had no say in the matter. The court noted that it was a violation of the Constitution and evidence provided during the trial indicated that it did not stop crime but that it did cause an increased breakdown in police/community relations. Until you provide evidence that the removal of the stop-and-frisk policy has any bearing on crime, you are simply posturing. (What are the changes in white crime, since more whites were caught with contraband than non-whites, even though far fewer whites were stopped?) ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/33 "2015-06-07T21:14:03Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Because the NYPD was so respected in the 70s and 80s. Because lack of respect for the cops causes people to murder each other. Weren’t they **The Serpico Years**? > [@adaher](#): > > You’re assuming that stop and frisk policies weren’t applied to suspicious whites. I realize that the policy disproportionately targets minorities, but if the policy reduces murders by catching people illegally carrying weapons, and now we’re not catching as many, that means more people walking around with illegal weapons. I **[thought](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City)** the majority of New Yorkers are minorities. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/34 "2015-06-07T22:36:27Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Micro-analyzing statistical noise is silliness. Agreed. This is nothing more the grasping at an outcome from desired reasoning. If NYC has an increase in crime for 5 years (while the national average stays down) then we might possibly maybe be able to talk about policing. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/35 "2015-06-07T22:57:38Z")
Hmmm. [San Francisco in 2012](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/stop-and-frisk-san-francisco_n_1751676.html) considered implementing stop and frisk and rejected it. What happened? Over the next two years murder rates plummeted and they hit their lowest rate ever in 2014. And this year a quadruple homicide there at the start of the year puts them running twice as high ytd as during that record low year. Dramatic drops and dramatic increase all with no change in the non-existent never passed stop and frisk policy. What happened in NYC in 2014 as stop and frisk dropped dramatically? Oh yeah, the lowest murder rate they have ever had. Did the dramatic reductions in stop and frisk that year cause that? Of course not. But crime went down, especially violent crime. Stop and frisk actually [peaked in](http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data) 2011 and dropped in 2012, 2013, and especially in 2014. Homicide rates decreased each of those years. Stop and frisk did [not](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130523/08220523185/stop-frisk-accomplishments-barely-any-illegal-weapons-recovered-tons-weed-smokers-jailed.shtml) recover many illegal firearms (only a 0.02% increase) … it did result in a bunch of folk arrested for carrying weed. Stop and frisk did not cause the decline in homicide rates in New York, its decrease did not cause the further drop in 2014 to record lows, and the current statistical blip off of record lows toward the mean (within 2% of 2013’s numbers which were lower than 2012’s) does not match up with where stop and frisk has decreased the most. Claims of a “trend” are greatly exaggerated. Oh [this](http://nypost.com/2014/01/28/nyc-sees-33-percent-spike-in-murders/) is fun! > [@The New York Post](#): > > … Bill Bratton is already facing some sobering news — a 33 percent spike in murders across the city. … The source blamed de Blasio’s anti-stop-and-frisk push for the uptick in slayings. > “This is the residual effect of de Blasio’s backlash against stop-and-frisk,’’ the source said. “Cops aren’t stopping people and taking guns off the street, which emboldens the criminals,” the source said. > Another veteran investigator agreed, saying, “Cops are reticent about making stops because they don’t want to get punished.”… Thing is that was early 20_14_, which ended with a record low homicide rate. 🙂 Keep grasping at your blips! ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/36 "2015-06-08T03:42:38Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > I **[thought](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City)** the majority of New Yorkers are minorities. “Disproportionate” doesn’t just mean “more” ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/37 "2015-06-08T10:26:42Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Well do tell us how De Blasio has “standoffed” the police exactly, then. Please be specific. The why and how I can not answer. I do not live in NYC and do not follow week by week events there. I only know they have since I have read that in the news from 2 or 3 different sources. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/38 "2015-06-08T10:40:13Z")
\*\*Kobal2 \*\*you were not following the logic of the statement to my conclusion, but yours. You also took offense where none was intended. I was thinking in economic terms in that people are making rational decisions based upon the situation that has come about there. Basically that although there is a high cost to criminal activity the likely hood of being caught has been lowered a significant amount. Therefore the predictable result is more crime. Now why this situation has come about I do know and you can argue that with others. > [@Kobal2](#): > > I agree that my post was provocative, deliberately so. Probably over the top, yes. I accept the warning. > > I disagree that I’m putting words in anybody’s mouth. I’m simply following the logic of the statement to its inevitable conclusion. The only noteworthy move De Blasio did wrt crime and policing was ending the so-called “stop and frisk” policy. It was ended because it was ineffectual and in practice demonstrably and overwhelmingly targeted minorities to the point of harassment. It may or may not have started thus, but in recent years it amounted to blatant racial profiling - which previous NYC mayor Bloomberg didn’t even bother denying. > > Arguing that the end of “stop and frisk” is the root cause of an uptick in murder ; that in fact such uptick constitutes a fully expected result of ending the policy equates with asserting that harassing random non-whites prevents murders, which in turn implies that non-whites are the ones doing all the murderin’ (without any factual support in this case, mind - just “common sense”). It’s a blinkered, simplistic (because that’s not how statistical analysis works) but fundamentally racist position to hold. Even if the poster doesn’t realize it. > Either that or the poster is blissfully ignorant of what the hell they’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/39 "2015-06-08T11:05:29Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > … the likely hood of being caught has been lowered a significant amount. Therefore the predictable result is more crime. … False both premise and conclusion. Stop and frisk never increased the likelihood of catching people committing violent crime. It mostly caught people carrying small amounts of weed. It also had virtually no impact on the rate of illegal guns confiscated. The “result” of decreasing stop and frisk has been the reduction of crime overall and over the three years that it has dropped an overall (not uniformly linear) continued drop in murder rates. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/40 "2015-06-08T11:41:11Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > The why and how I can not answer. I do not live in NYC and do not follow week by week events there. I only know they have since I have read that in the news from 2 or 3 different sources. Ah. So, “blissfully ignorant of what the hell they’re talking about”, then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824.md?page=3)