Politics

‘You Need A Different Apology’: Warren Calls Out Bloomberg For How He Responded To Stop And Frisk Criticism

Screenshot MSNBC Democratic Candidates Debate - Las Vegas, Nevada

Shelby Talcott Senior White House Correspondent
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Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called out former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg after he appeared to justify his “stop and frisk” policy during the ninth Democratic debate Wednesday.

Bloomberg made his Democratic debate debut Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada and was attacked right off the bat by the other candidates on stage. Moderators asked the former New York City mayor about his polarizing “stop and frisk” policy, and Warren immediately pounced when Bloomberg didn’t officially apologize.

“When the mayor says that he apologized, listen very closely to the apology,” Warren said. “The language he used is about stop and frisk. It’s about how it turned out. Now this isn’t about how it turned out, this is about what it was designed to do to begin with. It targeted communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the beginning.”

“And if you want to issue a real apology, then the apology has to start with the intent of the plan as it was put together and the willful ignorance day by day by dy of admitting what was happening even as people protested in your even street, shutting out the sounds of people telling you how your own policy was breaking their lives. You need a different apology here, Mr. Mayor.”

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Bloomberg said Wednesday that he was “embarrassed” by “how it turned out with stop and frisk.” He added they ended up doing far too many stop and frisks, but noted that it did cause the crime rate to go down. (RELATED: ‘I Am Not Afraid Of You’: Bloomberg Responds To Trump’s Deleted ‘Stop-And-Frisk’ Comment)

“I’ve sat, I’ve apologized, I’ve asked for forgiveness. But the bottom line that is we stopped too many people, but the policy — we stopped too many people, and we’ve got to make sure that we do something about criminal justice in this country,” Bloomberg said.