During the Monday night Presidential Debate, Donald Trump was asked by moderator Lester Holt about the controversial stop-and-frisk technique which the GOP nominee has shown some support for over the past several weeks.
However instead of distancing himself from the topic, Trump instead dug himself a bigger hole when he first mentioned the successes behind it in New York City and whether or not it was ruled unconstitutional in the Big Apple.
.@LesterHoltNBC: “Stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York”
Trump: “No, you’re wrong” #Debates2016 https://t.co/0CEgMW57NS
— CNN (@CNN) September 27, 2016
The fact is stop-and-frisk did little to reduce the number of shootings within New York City according to DNAInfo.com:
Between 2009 and 2011, the number of people shot in New York climbed from 1,727 to 1,821 even as the NYPD was ratcheting up the number of people it rousted from 510,742 in 2009 to the record 685,724, the statistics showed.
A similar pattern of rising shootings and escalating stop-and-frisks occurred from 2004 through 2006. During those years, the NYPD stop-and-frisks jumped 70 percent, from 313,523 to 506,491, but the number of shooting victims rose about 7 percent, from 1,777 to 1,880.
During Bloomberg’s first five years in office, the number of stops and frisks went up five fold, from 97,296 in 2002 to 506,491 in 2006. But the numbers of shootings and victims — 1,556 and 1,880, respectively — remained about the same since he and Kelly started.
Then during the exchange on tonight’s debate, a NYPD spokesman tweeted this out:
Moments after Trump speaks on stop-and-frisk, NYPD spokesman tweets this. #debatenight pic.twitter.com/HqXf9JLOq2
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) September 27, 2016
Needless to say and despite Trump’s bumbling on the subject the notion of stop-and-frisk was deemed unconstitutional and for good reason. It is an undoubted violation against the fourth amendment which protects American citizens against an illegal search and seizure. And that’s not even considering the tremendous racial profiling that occurs when this absurd policy is in place.