Polanco Politics: Rudy Was Right

Capture_J C Polanco_2015

In light of  the Christopher Duran killing, Rudy had right approach

by J.C. Polanco, Esq., MBA

Very few groups are as ungrateful as and has more historical amnesia than New York City’s liberal elite. To them, the name Rudy Giuliani alone stirs up the most irrational hatred. Recently, the former mayor has taken to the Sunday media circles to opine on police and race relations. Some racists argue that because he is a white male discussing the facts of the unimaginable level so crime in minority areas; he may not fit the profile of the best messenger. But who better to discuss the realities of inner city crime than the man single-handedly saved the lives of thousands of minorities who grew up ?

How quickly we forget the warzones parts our city became under liberal rule. Street gangs controlled entire areas of the ‘hood. Gangs and drug dealers thrived during the liberal era’s reactive policing. Those thugs benefited from politicians who preached victimization and, like bad parents, refused to discipline their wayward children, and blamed everyone else for their poor decisions.

Along came Rudy Giuliani, with a drive to change the culture of the city and to reduce murders that plagued our city.

Here’s the thing liberals don’t want to admit: the murders he reduced were exclusively those of Black and Hispanic victims. How did he do this?  Innovative and active policing, strong commitment to Broken Windows policing, reducing welfare rolls by hundreds of thousands and adhering to workfare saved communities.

Rudy saved lives and was a hero.

Rudy’s urban Republican governance, led to the current surge of gentrification in New York City.

People who at one time you couldn’t pay to live in some parts of the city, now find Harlem, Brownsville and Mott Haven so incredibly safe and desirable to live and raise a family.  These present day carpetbaggers have taken over formerly violent areas and made them into enclaves of organic smoothie cafes, yoga centers and Kumons.

Those new inner city immigrants, educated, mostly white, many upper middle class and ultra liberal support Democratic politicians who oppose the very policies that tamed the neighborhoods they now call home.

Sadly, some of these transplants were elected and are proposing the most insane policy changes laws in City Hall. With  zero reference points and very little understanding of the dangers New Yorkers once faced, these so-called progressives want to dismantle what Giuliani put into place (and Bloomberg maintained).

With disarming phrases like, Criminal Justice Reform, they are focused on decriminalizing quality of life crimes, providing for taxpayer funded bail for criminals and removing immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents from Rikers Island jails.

For instance, last year we saw the end of the infamous crime fighting tactic, stop, question and frisk (SQF). This was undoubtedly, a controversial policy that may have been in need of reform but not elimination.

Thanks to SQF over 60,000 illegal weapons were removed from overwhelmingly black and Hispanic males. When black and Hispanics make up 96% of all victims of violent crimes in NYC and 94% of the perpetrators are Black and Hispanic, then clearly an overwhelming number of black and Hispanic males will be stopped question and frisked.

Today, shootings and murders are again increasing and even the most liberal members in the City Council are asking for more police to patrol the city. Mayor deBlasio, however, refuses to listen to his own police commissioner and refuses to provide New Yorkers additional police protection.

Ultimately, Rudy was and is right. His policies saved lives, and exclusively Black and Brown lives. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute writes, “Most significant, more than 10,000 black and Hispanic males avoided the premature death that would have been their fate had New York’s homicide rate remained at its early-1990s apex. Blacks and Hispanics have made up 79% of the decline in homicide victims since 1993.”

Many of us are alive as a result of active policing, Republican policies and Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Juan Carlos “J.C.” Polanco, a former Bronx Commissioner and President of the NYC Board of Elections, is an attorney, the NYC Regional Director for the State Assembly Minority Leader and teaches at the City University of New York. J.C. appears regularly on NY1 Inside City Hall, Pura Politica, CNN, Fox News, Bronxnet Open and Univision 41.

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