A usually defiant Michael Bloomberg showed the faintest crack in his stubborn stop-and-frisk reasoning in an interview with The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta. “If I had a son who was stopped, I might feel differently about it, but nevertheless,” the mayor “conceded,” according to Auletta, who called the mayor’s comments on the issue occasionally “callous.” (Of course, for Bloomberg to have a son that would be stopped, odds are he’d have to at least appear to be a man of color.) Bloomberg continued, promptly pivoting away from his personal admission. “Maybe I was inelegant, but I don’t think anybody thinks I am anything but — I hope not, anyway — supportive of trying to help all people,” he said. “With my own money as well as time, thank you very much. I’ve spent twelve years of my life doing this.”

On Sunday, Bloomberg joined Ray Kelly’s media tour in defense of the NYPD tactic with an op-ed in the Washington Post. “Every American has a right to walk down the street without being targeted by the police because of his or her race or ethnicity,” he wrote in response to the court ruling that called stop-and-frisk unconstitutional. “At the same time, every American has a right to walk down the street without getting mugged or killed. Both are civil liberties — and we in New York are fully committed to protecting both equally, even when others are not.”

There’s no mention of his hypothetical son in that one, although Bloomberg’s flash of empathy in The New Yorker seemed to at least nod to the mayoral candidates with black sons, Bill Thompson and Bill de Blasio. In a new spot, following up on his bi-racial teenager Dante’s solo star turn, de Blasio talks about explaining stop-and-frisk to his son. “I wish everyone could see through the eyes of every other parent,” de Blasio tells the camera, in coincidental harmony with Bloomberg’s comments. “These are all our children.”