When I first heard about the Community Safety Act last year, I assumed it wouldn’t amount to anything and would quickly blow over. Back then I reasoned that surely even New York City wasn’t stupid enough to tie the hands of their police to that degree.

If there are issues that exist with the City’s Police Department itself, fine: go in and suspend/fire the bad cops. Heck, fire an entire precinct, if need be. But any legislation which completely neutered the police force would result in far more harm than any potential good.

So yeah, I figured cooler heads would prevail here, and that’d be that.

*sigh* When will I ever learn?

From the New York Daily News:

…Now, running for mayor, (Christine Quinn) has uncharacteristically given the go-ahead to a real stinker called the “Community Safety Act”. She says she will vote against the measure (good for her), while it likely passes (terrible for the city).

The misbegotten legislation would bar cops from relying “to any degree” on a vertigo-inducing array of descriptors as the “determinative factor” in stopping, questioning or arresting people suspected of criminality.

The forbidden descriptors include:

race,

color,

ethnicity,

religion,

national origin,

age,

sex,

gender identity or expression,

sexual orientation,

immigration or citizenship status,

disability (including HIV status) or occupation.

Here’s how that plays out:

“Officer, I was just robbed by a white man who walked with a limp, and was about 5-foot-5.”

“Sorry, ma’am, I can’t look for a disabled white guy, but I will put out an APB on a 5-foot-5 robber of undetermined sex.”

Do we employ a secret lab somewhere, with a group of permanently stoned college kids just spit-balling dumb ideas for us to try out on the American public? I mean, who else could possibly be in support of something this moronic?

I’d like to say it’s as if we’re making the police play ‘Blind Man’s Bluff‘, but obviously I can’t… ’cause that would be illegal, now wouldn’t it?

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