De Blasio, Kelly, “Clear The Air”

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio said Saturday he’d “cleared the air” with police Commissioner Raymond Kelly a day after Kelly said de Blasio and other Democrats were pandering by criticizing the controversial policing tactic known as “stop-and-frisk.”

De Blasio declined to get into the specifics of Friday’s discussion with Kelly, who said in an interview that Democrats were “pandering to get votes” by attacking the stops of young black and Hispanic men.

“It was a good conversation and we cleared the air and we’re moving forward,” de Blasio said following a speech at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in Harlem.

Pressed on what exactly he meant, or if any apology was made, de Blasio said, “Just exactly what I said, we cleared the air.”

Democratic hopefuls repeatedly bashed the use of stop-and-frisk during the hard-fought mayoral primary, and it became a central issue in the general election de Blasio won by a wide margin earlier this month.

In the interview, Kelly defended the use of the tactic, dismissing an exit poll that found that 59 percent of Democratic primary voters considered the stop-and-frisk practices excessive.

“Among the people, there’s no groundswell against stop-and-frisk, certainly not in minority communities,” Kelly said. “I’m there all the time. They want more proactive policing.

“They were talking about election-year politics,” he said. “They were pandering to get votes.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended Kelly’s comments on Friday, marveling at the way New Yorkers feel much safer today than when Kelly took office in 2002.

“Ray Kelly’s legacy is the following: 7,500 fewer people shot dead than there would have been if we’d just had the murder rate when we came in. And 7,500, history shows, would almost all be male, minorities, [ages] 15 to 25,” Bloomberg said in his weekly radio show. “So if Ray’s legacy is saving 7,500 lives, I’d have a smile on my face if I were him.”

At Sharpton’s rally Saturday, de Blasio reiterated his promise of a new progressive tone in city politics.

“I’m going to need you every step of the way,” he told the cheering crowd. “I will not be shy about coming back here and saying, ‘Now it’s time. I need you to make your voices heard.’ Because we are going to get on with a very not only progressive but aggressive agenda.”

The mayor-elect warned that there would be “powerful forces” mobilizing against him and that enacting his agenda would not be easy.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the November 18th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.