Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week that critics who complain that police stop and question too many minorities have it exactly backwards. He pointed to police statistics that showed that 87% of stops were of blacks or Latinos and that 90% of murder suspects were identified as black or Latino. “In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much, and minorities too little,” said the mayor. But critics say the mayor’s wrong because police can only lawfully stop people who match a suspect’s description, or who give authorities reasonable cause to believe they are committing or about to commit a crime. Mr. Bloomberg is trying to persuade the City Council to uphold his veto of legislation curtailing stop-and-frisk, a tactic he credits with reducing crime. Of the 464,000 people stopped by police last year, 87% were blacks or Latinos, who make up 90% of murder suspects.
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