Bill Bratton and former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly spar over stop-and-frisk

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Tuesday, September 1, 2015, 8:21 AM

NYPD Commisioner Bill Bratton says stop-and-frisk was the 'No. 1 concern' among the city’s black population when he took the helm in 2014.

The gloves are off.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton unleashed a couple of body blows — and even an upper cut or two — saying that keeping the streets safe would be a little easier if he didn't have to clean up his predecessor's mess.

Bratton said Raymond Kelly's stop-and-frisk policy disproportionately targeted blacks and Hispanics, and made it more difficult to improve community policing.

“The No. 1 issue we heard over and over again was that the black community — rich, poor, middle class — was concerned about this issue,” Bratton, who took the helm in 2014, said of stop-and-frisk in a New Yorker article published online Monday. “The commissioner, whom they liked quite a bit, and Mayor Bloomberg, who polled well for a long time, just weren’t listening. They were kind of tone-deaf to this issue. So we worked really hard, myself and Mayor de Blasio, to respond.”

And in case he wasn’t clear, Bratton added in the New Yorker interview: “We should not make the mistake of my predecessor on the stop-question-and-frisk issue.”

In 2011, there were nearly 700,000 recorded stop-and-frisk encounters in the city and 91% of them involved minorities. Half of them were made because of “furtive movements,” a catch-all on the form filled out by cops when making the stops.

By the end of 2013, the number dropped to less than 200,000. In 2014, the number was 50,000.

NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi

Kelly could not be reached by the Daily News on Monday, but shot back in the magazine article, saying Bratton had it all wrong.

“That was not the feeling of much of the communities of color,” Kelly says in the magazine story. “It was the view of activists. I’m telling him, he's wrong.”

Asked Monday about his break with Kelly on stop-and-frisk, a chasm spelled out in the magazine article and reportedly in the former commissioner’s upcoming book “Vigilance,” Bratton tried to take the high road.

“As to stop, question and frisk, quite clearly there's a difference of opinion,” Bratton said.

Cops tried to arrest Eric Garner for selling loose cigarettes, but he died when a chokehold was used.

The magazine article reviews Bratton's second stint at the helm of the NYPD, and focuses on the commissioner's advocacy of broken windows policing tactics — writing summonses for minor offenses to prevent more serious crime.

Bratton acknowledges the backlash he has received for the broken windows policy.

He says in the article that the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man, on Staten Island in July 2014 was part of “the most trying period of time for me in my whole career.” Garner was being questioned for selling loose cigarettes — a classic broken-windows violation — but died in a chokehold at the hands of a white cop. Garner was unarmed.

Mayor de Blasio, at the time, told reporters he had to train his teenage son, Dante, “how to take special care” in police encounters. Bratton defended his boss in the New Yorker piece.

“Every black I’ve ever dealt with tells me that they tell their kids the same thing,” he said.

Bratton, who previously served as NYPD commissioner from 1994 to 1996, concedes in the article that there is a lack of scientific proof that broken-windows policing lowered the city’s crime rate. Serious crime is down by about 4% citywide through Sunday.

“The evidence I rely on is what my eyes show me,” he said, pointing to “the reduction of fear” that he sees in neighborhoods like Times Square.

ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.

tmoore@nydailynews.com