New York City will have a new mayor in 2014. In my article “Ten Steps Bill de Blasio and Bill Bratton Should Take to Fix Stop-and-Frisk,” published in The Nation, I offer a way forward for Mr. de Blasio to start repairing the damage done by the Bloomberg-era policing of the last 12 years.
New York, and indeed the entire country, is waiting to see what the newly sworn-in Bill de Blasio will do the first week of January to fulfill his promise to reform stop-and-frisk. His first step should be to drop the appeal of Floyd v. City of New York, a move he promised to make many times on the campaign trail….Once the stop-and-frisk appeal is dropped, here are the top ten steps de Blasio and Bratton should take as part of the Floyd remedies process to move forward with stop-and-frisk reform and end racial profiling.
Among the steps I recommend: allowing community stakeholders to be part of the reform process; setting up an independent monitor, and creation of an early warning system. Many of what you’ll read echo what is in the court’s opinion setting out the remedies for the violations the evidence proved.
To get at least some sense of what Bratton’s approach may be, take a look at this article from the Wall Street Journal on December 20. Perhaps “collaborative policing” — Bratton’s most-frequently-used phrase so far — will include allowing stakeholder participation in the fashioning of reforms; it is too early to tell at this point.
Failed Evidence 
This appears to be a typical Bratton approach, first it was community policing, a lot of hype and very little results, in the end, NYPD return to traditional police practice. If his policies were so wonderful he’d still be in LA. Policing should be left to the police and community activism should be left to the Al Sharpton’s of the world. Stop and Frist should be left up to the courts not the community activist. Racial profiling has been made a dirty word. As a retired police supervisor I would never send my men to China Town looking for a black suspect, maybe if I send them to Harlem I would have a better chance of apprehending the suspect. I suspect with the new mayor, Al Sharpton will be running NYPD and Bratton will be the figure head.
I disagree. Yes, Bratton always has a very visible public presence, but that is often necessary to connect with his constituencies — both his officers and the public. And by every account, he did a very good job in LA: crime is down, and the police dept. is in better shape, has better morale than when he started, and enjoys greater trust and confidence of the public. Those who praise his work in LA range from police officers to civil rights activists to non-partisan think tanks. The reason he’s not still there is that he served a full five-year term, successfully, and simply moved on. Al Sharpton running the NYPD, with Bratton as figurehead? No way. I’ll take that bet, any day of the week.
I also disagree with your comments about racial profiling. Use descriptions, including race? Sure. Profile behavior? Absolutely. But profiling by race or ethnic appearance is a recipe for ineffective police work — not to mention legally questionable.