Amid positive media coverage in the New York Daily News on LDF’s upcoming case Davis v. City of New York, a lawsuit which challenges the NYPD’s policy and practice of unlawfully stopping and arresting public housing residents and their guests for trespassing, Mayor Bloomberg suggested that residents of public housing should be “fingerprinted” before entering their own homes.
On a radio show this morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unleashed a paternalistic diatribe against Judge Scheindlin’s recent decision which ruled stop-and-frisk to be discriminatory against Black and Hispanics and in violation of their constitutional rights. He also lashed out against LDF’s forthcoming Davis case which addresses similar themes of racial discrimination against New York City’s minority communities.
Rather than addressing the overwhelming evidence that thousands of innocent people have been stopped—and sometimes arrested—for trespassing in public housing apartments, however, Mayor Bloomberg instead suggested that residents and guests should be “fingerprinted” before entering their own homes.
“Mayor Bloomberg’s derogatory statements about public housing residents are an outrage,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, LDF’s President and Director-Counsel. “Families live in public housing apartments, not criminals. Public housing residents, as well as their friends and family members visiting them, deserve the same level of respect from our Mayor as any other New York City resident. They should not be treated like prisoners in their own homes.”
Meanwhile, New York Daily News reported optimistically on LDF’s upcoming trial in a piece titled “Stop-and-frisk judge will lay down law on wrongful NYCHA arrests.”
“She laid down the law on street stops. Next up: public housing…Lisa Piggott, 40, the mother of a NYCHA plaintiff, praised Scheindlin for ruling that the NYPD profiles based on race. “For those of us who live in public housing, this is not news,” said Piggott, whose son was arrested for trespass while visiting a friend and later had his charges dismissed.”
It appears that Bloomberg’s tirade against Judge Scheindlin and our Davis case is an uphill battle. Every democratic mayoral candidate has said they would abandon Bloomberg’s efforts to appeal the stop-and-frisk ruling.
Read LDF’s statement on Bloomberg’s comments.
