Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and Commissioner Raymond Kelly are apoplectic about a bill pending
in the City Council that would create the position of inspector
general, an official with broad powers to review the policies of the
nation’s largest police department. Given the department’s long history
of episodic misconduct, the idea is one whose time has clearly come. The
City Council should press ahead with the bill and be prepared to
override a veto by the mayor.
Mr. Kelly’s assertion that an inspector general might impinge on law
enforcement — or somehow make the city less safe — is utter nonsense. It
ignores the fact that inspectors general scrutinize other city
departments as well as police departments in other cities and federal
agencies like the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. Their job is not to run things
but to recommend improvements. The assertion that oversight is
unnecessary ignores not only history but also the present — the
department’s increasingly problematic stop-and-frisk program. The
program is the subject of three federal lawsuits. In Floyd v. the City of New York,
plaintiffs argue that the department is stopping and frisking people on
the basis of race rather than reasonable suspicion of criminal
behavior.
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This is an editorial from the NYTimes. Tom
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