NEW YORK CITY — High-ranking New York lawmakers and family members of people killed by the NYPD are asking the nation not support former mayor Micheal Bloomberg’s campaign for the presidency.
Ninety New Yorkers of color — including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, state Senator Julia Salazar and City Council Member Antonio Reynoso — signed a letter, released Tuesday, outlining the Bloomberg era policies they say disproportionately harmed New Yorkers of color.
Increased surveillance of Muslim communities after 9/11, school closures in low income neighborhoods, and NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk are just a few policies the group condemns.
“Michael Bloomberg has attempted to rewrite his legacy, but we haven’t forgotten,” the letter reads. “We could write books that would fill libraries about the harm that Bloomberg caused New Yorkers–harm that has lasting effects to today.”
Bloomberg’s campaign press office did not immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment.
The Democratic presidential candidate has faced severe criticism from New Yorkers for policies enacted during his reign as New York City mayor from 2002 to 2014.
The hashtag #MyBloombergStory — which united stories of subway cops slamming people against walls, random searches conducted in front of children and guns drawn on unarmed teenagers — went viral after a podcaster uncovered audio of Bloomberg suggesting one could “just Xerox” descriptions of young men of color when looking for criminals.
Bloomberg has since apologized for supporting stop-and-frisk, but his plea for forgiveness fell short with the letter writers.
“The extent of harm, humiliation and terror that the Bloomberg administration’s daily racial profiling and police violence caused in Black, Latinx and other communities of color cannot be overstated,” the letter reads.