When Apologies From Politicians Ring Hollow: Bloomberg Apologizes For Stop And Frisk.

White guy who has never been stopped and frisked for no reason by cops here.  My BS detector just went off the scales with Bloomberg’s apology on pursuing “stop and frisk” in NYC.  Nothing like running for president in a Democratic primary to see the light, huh?

'I was wrong': Bloomberg sorry for 'Stop and Frisk' in about-face apology ahead of potential presidential bid

I’m this really bad racism detector (I’ve been justifiably dinged for some insensitive comments by POC on Daily Kos), but when I notice something is racist, you better believe it has to be bad.  As further proof of this, the guy who originally came up with this racist policy was Rudy Guiliani.

Here are some of the stats about this policy pursued by Bloomberg:

The initiative grew out of the tough policies of Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor of New York.

“Stop and frisk” continued into Bloomberg's administration, peaking at 203,500 stops during the first three months of 2012, before declining by about 95% by the end of his run as mayor at the end of 2013 — after the police department issued a memo announcing changes to its tactics.

More than 5 million “Stop and Frisk” stops were made during Bloomberg's 12 years in office, with nearly 686,000 stops in 2011 being the high point during his overall tenure, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. African American and Latinos accounted for more than 50% of the stops in 70 out of 76 New York precincts and more than 90% in 32 precincts, according to the ALCU's report released in August 2014.

“Though they accounted for only 4.7 percent of the city's population, black and Latino males between the ages of 14 and 24 accounted for 41 percent of stops between 2003 and 2013,” the ALCU said in the report. “Nearly 90 percent of young black and Latino men stopped were innocent.”

I knew this policy was bad, but man, I didn’t know it was that bad.  I don’t live in NYC, but wow.

Now, Bloomberg had YEARS to experience this come to Jesus moment, but he only experienced his conversion on the road to Damascus when he announced he was the Democrats savior.  In fact, according to the CNN article, he was still DEFENDING stop and frisk earlier this year.

The former mayor's reversal comes months after he defended the policing tactic in January as he publicly mulled a 2020 bid at the time. Bloomberg, who has recently filed paperwork to get on the Democratic primary ballots in two states, is now again considering jumping in the race, and his new comments could be viewed by potential voters as an attempt by the former mayor to abandon what is arguably one of the most controversial aspects of his tenure in the run-up to an official campaign announcement.

I predict the Media that loves billionaires will now say, “He apoligized.  Forgive and Forget!”

Fuck ‘em.