The city’s stunning legal victory on stop-and-frisk has temporarily uncuffed the NYPD and put mayoral hopeful Bill de Blasio in a bind.
The Democratic front-runner said Friday he’s standing his ground and, if he becomes mayor, won’t continue the city’s appeal of a decision by Manhattan federal Judge Shira Scheindlin directing sweeping changes to the controversial policy.
That put him on a collision course with cops, who view an appeals court ruling Thursday rebuking Scheindlin as being biased and removing her from the case as a game-changer.
Detectives union president Mike Palladino called on de Blasio to take a step back and allow the NYPD to operate without federal intervention, which would be a reversal of his campaign pledge.
Palladino said the integrity of the judge and her decision — rather than the actions of police — have now been called into question.
“You have a federal judge who tried to manipulate the system and impose her will. It’s disgraceful. If the judge is poisonous, the entire case is poisonous,” Palladino told The Post.
Scheindlin slammed the NYPD for indirect racial bias in its widespread use of stop-and-frisk and appointed a federal monitor to oversee the practice and institute reforms.
The city appealed and won a stay in Thursday’s startling decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We’re back to square one,” said Palladino.
Mayor Bloomberg said the higher court’s determination means there’s a “high probability” the city would succeed in its appeal.
He questioned why any mayor would want to run the Police Department with a federal monitor looking over his shoulder.
“I don’t know of any executive who would want to have an outsider dictate policy, particularly if you agree with that policy,” Hizzoner said on WOR radio.
“Because you would like to be able to put in and implement that policy and then, if it doesn’t work, change it rather than be stuck with an outsider.”
GOP mayoral nominee Joe Lhota hailed the three-judge panel’s stay, vowing that if he wins the election, the city’s appeal would proceed.
“It will absolutely go forward because the ruling by Judge Scheindlin is wrong. It was not based on the facts,” Lhota said.
De Blasio wasn’t budging.
“Nothing about this [appeals court] ruling changes my view of the judge or the decision she made,” he declared Friday.
But he also left himself some wiggle room.
“We don’t know what the next steps up ahead are in the legal process,” he said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the bigger headache for de Blasio will come if he wins and has to govern with a weakened NYPD.
“[Voters] should also realize that if they vote for Mr. de Blasio, don’t come complaining six months from now or a year from now that crime is going up,” said Giuliani, who was stumping on Staten Island with Lhota, his former deputy mayor.
Giuliani demanded de Blasio apologize to cops for accusing them of racial bias.
“I’m not looking to him for advice on police-community relations,” de Blasio responded.
Yahoo Local News – New York Post
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