Bloomberg Under Fire For Stop-And-Frisk Comments, Trump Calls Him ‘Total Racist’ In Deleted Tweet

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is under criticism after an audio clip was unearthed of comments he made about crime in minority communities. 

In the clip, the former mayor is heard defending the stop-and-frisk policies he oversaw as mayor, saying, “Ninety-five percent of murders – murderers and murder victims – fit one M.O. You can just take a description, xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are all male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city. And that’s where the real crime is.” 

Bloomberg noted that there were complaints surrounding police presence in certain communities, but continued to defend his decision. “We put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do you do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them.”

President Donald Trump, in a now-deleted tweet, fired at Bloomberg on Tuesday, calling him a “total racist” for defending the stop-and-frisk policy. This is a policy that Trump has also supported. 

At a campaign stop event in Derry, New Hampshire, first son Donald Trump Jr. told NBC News that the comments heard in the audio clip were “shocking by any reasonable standard of today.”

Bloomberg took to Twitter to apologize for the stop-and-frisk policies in New York, and took the opportunity to fire back at the president’s comments. “Trump’s deleted tweet is the latest example of his endless efforts to divide Americans. The President’s attack clearly reflects his fear over the growing strength of our campaign,” he said. 

I have apologized for taking too long to understand the impact of stop and frisk on Black and Latino communities.

I inherited stop and frisk. In an effort to stop gun violence, it was overused. I cut it back by 95%.

I should have cut it back sooner. https://t.co/nj2hBJcQP6

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) February 11, 2020

After the audio clip resurfaced, Bloomberg’s campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, said in an interview, “When you threaten Trump, you become a target. Mike was mayor for 12 years and fought for all New Yorkers, but he also knows you don’t back down from a bully and we are in a war to remove him from office.”