Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump brushed off concerns that stop-and-frisk policing tactics by the New York Police Department were unconstitutional and said those policies are necessary to keep guns out of criminals hands.
“It worked very well in New York, it borught the crime rate way down but you take the guns away from criminals that shouldn’t be having that,” Trump said. “We have gangs that are roaming the street illegally here, illegal immigrants. And, they have guns and they shoot people.”
Moderator Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News, pointed out that a federal judge ruled the policy was unconstitutional because it singled out black and Hispanic men for racial profiling.
“No, you’re wrong,” Trump said, despite the fact that Judge Shira Scheindlin did rule in 2013 that the policy was unconstitutional. “It went before a judge who was a very against police judge. It was taken away from her and our new mayor refused to go forward with the case. They would have won on appeal.”
Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City police officers have discontinued using stop-and-frisk policing. Previous Mayor Michael Bloomberg promoted the policy as an effective crime fighting tactic.
