Trump Uses Charlotte Unrest to Suggest Debunked Stop-and-Frisk Tactic

Alexandra Rosenmann
,
AlterNet
and
Alexandra Rosenmann
September 22, 2016Election '16

The national guard arrived in Charlotte on the second night of riots in response to the death of Keith Lamont Scott, who was fatally shot by the North Carolina police on Tuesday. Weighing in on the North Carolina state of emergency on Fox News Thursday morning was GOP nominee Donald Trump, who warned that the divisions in our country are getting worse. 

"Well, it's, wow, it's very sad, it's very divided, our country," Trump said, blaming "lack of spirit between the white and the black" for the unrest. 

Then, when asked about his message to the rioters in Charlotte, and what he would do to combat the crime rate in cities like Chicago, Trump took the opportunity to restate his unrelenting support for stop-and-frisk.

"Well, Ray Kelly did a great job, and New York was not in a Chicago situation, but it was really in trouble... Rudy Giuliani did a great job as mayor and they really straightened things out with stop-and-frisk, and it was further used by the next mayor, Bloomberg... and fairly recently they stopped it," Trump said.

After claiming that Chicago is now "more dangerous than Afghanistan," Trump claimed that the tactic would be used by police to identify who "should or shouldn't" have a gun. 

"Chicago needs stop-and-frisk with good strong law and order... They'll stop, they'll frisk and they'll take the gun away," Trump explained to "Fox and Friends." 

According to Donald Trump and Fox News, crime rose after New York City abandoned stop-and-frisk. However, even former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton has acknowledged that stop-and-frisk does not significantly impact the crime rate.

“Last year, when we had the lowest number of [stop-and-frisks], we had much less crime, the lowest number of homicides in the recorded history of the department,” Bratton said in a June 2015 press conference. “I’m sorry,” Bratton added. “If you can give me facts and figures that show something else, I’m more than happy to listen, but let’s get over it.”

Apparently, Trump can't. 

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