‘We Did the Best Thing We Can’: Bloomberg Defends ‘Stop-And-Frisk’ Program, Cites Decreased Murder Rate

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D) defended the controversial “stop-and-frisk” program that was implemented during his tenure.

During an appearance on “The Late Show” on Tuesday, host Stephen Colbert asked Bloomberg why he apologized for the policy shortly before he announced he was running for president.

Bloomberg defended the policy because, he said, it helped decrease the murder rate. But he said when the policy started “getting out of control,” he decided to see if rolling it back would lead to an increase in murders.

“ Actually talked to the woman who’s my assistant — has a young son. And we talked about what would happen if her son was getting stopped. And I took a look and said, ‘Let’s try something, stop doing the stop-and-frisk and see what happens.’ We thought murders would go up. It didn’t. So I said, ‘Let’s phase it out.’ And before I left office, we cut 95% of them out.”

Watch his comments below:

Bloomberg continued to say he “made a mistake,” noting that sometimes “not everything goes the right way.”

But Colbert pressed Bloomberg on the criticism of the policy during his tenure in office and asked, “Why not assess it while it’s going on? As a leader, we want to know that when you’re in power, you change your mind, not after it doesn’t matter.”

“No, we did. But the murder rate from 650 down to 300, we reduced dramatically,” Bloomberg responded.