The Proof Is In The Pudding

On November 24, The New York Post posted a story about some comments made by former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani.

The article reports:

Giuliani was over on “Meet the Press” — opening up on Michael Dyson, a Georgetown University professor and frequent critic of policing practices in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere in America:

“Ninety-three percent of blacks are killed by other blacks,” Rudy barked. “I would like to see the [same] attention paid to that, that you are paying to [Ferguson].”

“What about the poor black child who was killed by another black child?” Giuliani asked. “Why aren’t you protesting that? White police officers wouldn’t be there if you weren’t killing each other.”

Even if you don’t like what he said, Mayor Giuliana has a history of successful crime prevention.

The article reports:

The city’s murder rate began its dramatic decline during Giuliani’s early months in office, accelerated during the remainder of his mayoralty — and continued to fall during the ensuing 12 years as Mike Bloomberg more or less unapologetically continued Giuliani-era policing strategies.

…In Ferguson, the police force is overwhelmingly white. In New York, the department has been majority-minority for some time now, yet that fact generally is lost in the debate — which almost always revolves around race as it relates to enforcement, and only rarely as it involves victims and victimizers.
The fact is that crime attracts cops — that’s the point of a police force, after all.

Hard-charging cops can be abrasive, and that’s something officers everywhere need to work on — but in the end the issue must not be cops, but rather crime.

Rudy Giuliani’s point, not to put words in his mouth, seems to be this: If a fraction of the energy that now goes to demonizing cops was devoted to condemning crime and criminals, some real progress might be made.

How ironic that Barack Obama seems to agree.

Mayor Giuliani was successful in reducing crime in New York City. He created an atmosphere where criminals were prosecuted and punished for their crimes. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has seen criminal activity in racial terms–an early example of this was the refusal to prosecute the Black Panthers for voter intimidation despite the video evidence that was posted on YouTube. Injustice triggers anger, regardless of which race is being treated unjustly. I think the President needs to remember that.