'As a candidate and in City Hall, Bill de Blasio played a facile numbers game. It went as follows: The cops were arresting or issuing summonses to only 12% of the people whom they had stopped on suspicion of criminality. Thus, the vast majority of the NYPD's then-annual 700,000 stops targeted people who had done nothing wrong. Thus, the NYPD was violating the rights of huge numbers of people…
Starting under Commissioner Ray Kelly and continuing under Commissioner Bill Bratton, the NYPD has sharply cut the number of stops. They are projected to total about 40,000 this year. At the same time, the hit rate has climbed to 18%...
He spoke proudly — and incorrectly. By his own standard, at a hit rate of 18%, the cops are still letting go 82% of the people they've stopped.'
'So let's do the math. 12% of 700,000 is 84, 000 people who broke the law in some way. And 18% of 40,000 is 7,200 people who broke the law in some way. Now the article does not mention what type of criminal activity was committed by these individuals or what weapons may have been confiscated during the stop-question-frisk program. But what we do know is that 76,800 "alleged" criminals are on the street because the program has been curtailed. '
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