At least three people were killed last night in six Halloween shootings, a dark reality that can be directly traced to the mayoral campaign of Bill de Blasio, according to his opponent Joe Lhota. In a Hail Mary move days before the election, Lhota attempted to connect the violence, the candidate, and yesterday’s appeals-court decision that held up changes to the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics and removed the judge from the case. “This says more about the ability of Bill de Blasio to be a mayor for all of New York,” said Lhota on the radio this morning. “He stands with a judge who was just told she that she violated her oath of office.”
“Is there a direct correlation? In my mind there is,” Lhota said of the shootings. “You’re seeing an uptick in violence and it’s directly related to the chilling effect of Judge Scheindlin and all of these political hacks who have been saying over and over again that stop, question, and frisk is unconstitutional.”
Of course, as with previous stop-and-frisk scaremongering, Lhota’s view is based on nothing at all: No changes to policing have actually gone into effect and Bill de Blasio, as we all know, is not in charge. Yet.
