Law & order lesson No. 1: combat violence, not cops
Last Updated: 11:24 PM, July 13, 2012
Posted: 10:33 PM, July 13, 2012
The Issue: The opposition to stop-and-frisk by many community leaders in high-crime neighborhoods.
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Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is right to ask: Where are the community leaders (“Speaking Truth to Nonsense,” Editorial, July 12)?
Stop-and-frisk is performed in all neighborhoods but most often in minority areas — because that is where crime is heaviest.
You would think that people in high-crime areas would appreciate this policy in order to get guns off the street before a crime or murder is committed.
Aren’t they tired of seeing their families and neighbors murdered, raped or robbed?
Instead of passing the blame, take a good look around and see whom you voted in to oversee your district.
L. Lombardi
Brooklyn
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Everyone is running scared over the recent violence in the city, and that’s understandable. Everyone is searching for solutions.
The answer is plain and simple: People have to change. People choose the way they want to live. If that’s like wild animals, we have a problem.
J. Cavaliere
Valley Stream
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Kelly is correct: The utter silence of the community advocates regarding inner-city crime is deafening.
Their response to the heat-wave shootout shows that they have no respect or compassion for their constituents.
Edward Every
New Brunswick, NJ
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As a retired member of the NYPD, I offer the following idea for stop-and-frisk: Stop the program until the end of September.
After that, we’ll see what the so-called besieged communities have to say. I think I can guess.
James Cassano
Middle Village
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The blame for rampant crime has to be placed directly on leadership unable to deal with such behavior.
For Kelly’s bravado, little can be done without cooperation of community leaders.
It’s not that black elected officials don’t care about the safety of the community. They are at wit’s end trying to deal with such problems because they are accepted by the culture.
What always works is a strong police presence supported by proactive leadership. But it’s not enough to hearken back to the days of Rudy Giuliani.
Police power supported by community leadership is the only true antidote to rampant misbehavior from the head down.
N. Smilow
Brooklyn
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Those complaining about stop-and-frisk and police protecting the citizens of New York need to spend more time addressing the issue of crime in those neighborhoods.
The reason there is more stop-and-frisk in some neighborhoods is because that’s where more crimes occur.
Do innocent people sometimes get caught up in the process? Yes. But I bet there are more crimes prevented than there are innocent people stopped. What’s more important?
Robert Stiskin
Stamford, Conn.
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Kelly would be better off working with the precinct community councils that represent the neighborhoods. Unlike politicians, these people are in the line of fire every day.
The objections by politicians are based on old images of oppressive white police officers harassing minorities, which is no longer the case. Yet they continue to hold on to this artificial posture, to the detriment of the people they represent.
Let the people decide.
Phil Serpico
Queens
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Here’s a memo for Al Sharpton and Charles Barron: It’s time to take back the streets. . . again!
Herb Stark
Massapequa
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Community leaders have zero influence over gun-toting thugs or demonstrations.
The politicians’ grandstanding and finger-pointing responses to Kelly’s blunt, spoken truths are a desperate denial of reality.
These excuses also are an unintentional acknowledgment of the officials’ own helplessness and irrelevance in the face of the blight of violence.
David Rabinovitz
Brooklyn