Mayor Bloomberg Rips NY Times Over Stop and Frisk Coverage

Mayor Bloomberg today unleashed an attack on The New York Times, accusing the paper of hypocrisy for publishing an editorial against the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy days after the “paper of record” didn’t bother covering of the murder of a black teenager.

“Last week, a Bronx resident named Alphonza Bryant was shot and killed while standing with friends near his home. He was 17. Like most murder victims in our city, he was a minority,” a frustrated Bloomberg told NYPD brass during an address at 1 Police Plaza.

“He was just a victim of too many guns on our streets. But after his murder … there was not even a mention of his murder in our paper of record, the New York Times. All the news that’s fit to print did not include the murder of a 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant.”

Bryant was gunned down near his home in Foxhurst April 22, weeks before his senior prom and graduation from Urban Assembly Bronx Studio for Writers and Artists in exactly the kind of violent crime stop and frisk aims to prevent by taking guns off the street.

“Four days after Alphonza Bryant’s murder went unreported by the Times, the paper published another editorial attacking stop, question, and frisk. They called it a wildly loathed practice, even though a growing number of mothers and fathers who have had their children murdered with guns have been speaking out in support of stop, question, and frisk,” the mayor said.

“Let me tell you now what I loathe. I loathe that 17-year-old minority children can be senselessly murdered in the Bronx and some of the media doesn’t even consider it news.”

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“After his murder, there was no outrage from the Center for Constitutional Rights, or the NYCLU,” Bloomberg noted, citing frequent critics of the policy who are also plaintiffs in a suit against the city claiming it discriminates against minorities. “He was just a victim of too many guns on our streets.”

The NYCLU said today in a statement, “”It’s a lot easier to trash the NYCLU than to acknowledge the widespread dissatisfaction the community feels with an NYPD that acts like it’s above the law and accountable to no one.”

Bloomberg insisted that stop and frisk saves lives – and that the majority of those saved are minorities.

“About 90 percent of our murder victims in our city are black or Latino.

The fact of the matter is that when police stop and ask a 17 year old a question based on a reasonable suspicion of a crime there is outrage. Yet when a 17-year-old is standing on the street corner near his home at 8:15 in the evening and gets shot and killed, there is silence,” Bloomberg said in remarks that prompted a thunderous standing ovation from the police chiefs and other brass present.

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