Will critics never tire of smearing New York cops as racist?
Police arrest “black and brown New Yorkers” on pot charges at nearly 10 times the rate of whites, they now huff — implying that cops are bigots.
Don’t buy it. Fact is, police respond to complaints, whomever they involve, and pot-complaint calls happen to come mainly in minority communities.
As NYPD spokesman Peter Donald notes, if cops didn’t respond to complaints, they’d be “rightfully called to task” for it.
Critics like City Council Member Donovan Richards (D-Queens) suggest otherwise: “I refuse to believe that . . . the only individuals calling 911 or 311 around this issue are people in communities of color.”
Some council members even suggest enforcement might vary depending on a neighborhood’s racial make-up — an absolutely outrageous slander against police.
Indeed, Mayor de Blasio himself has fueled the idea, citing a “clear racial bias in arrests” for “low-level” possession. It’s bull.
Let’s get real: There’s no great NYPD conspiracy to target minorities. Nor are most cops (a majority of whom are themselves minorities) racist.
What drives the higher complaint rates in minority areas? Experts can only offer possible explanations, starting with the fact that minorities use more pot, particularly on the streets, where they’re more likely to spark complaints.
The Hudson Institute’s David Murray notes that people in minority areas, concerned about crime, may be more likely to put “major pressure” on cops to crack down.
Plus, police might nab someone for drug possession only because they lack sufficient evidence to prove a more serious crime, like trafficking. Then, too, crime rates in general are higher among minorities than whites.
Alas, anti-cop critics don’t care about what’s behind the numbers but only about scoring political points by pretending to champion minorities. In the process, they do cops — and, ironically, minorities socked by crime — a grave disservice.