How Rudy Giuliani would halt NYC's violent crime surge
Rudy Giuliani reacts to New York City's spike in violent crime after a 1-year old was shot and killed
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani offered advice to current Mayor Bill de Blasio about what he should do to curb the alarming surge in gun violence.
Giuliani told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that de Blasio has “got to stop demeaning” the police.
“He has to stop saying things, that they’re racist and that his son is afraid of them,” Giuliani said.
Last year, during a Democratic presidential debate, de Blasio, a former Democratic presidential candidate, recalled the moment he spoke with his Black son, Dante, about what to do when being stopped by a police officer, The Huffington Post reported.
De Blasio’s son penned an op-ed in USA Today last year on his fear of police.
“The mayor has got to go into the communities and say, ‘The police are not your enemy, they’re your friends,’” Giuliani said.
“I went into those communities, not to harass Black people, but to save their lives and I saved more Black lives than any mayor in the history of the city,” he added. “So I think I know what I'm talking about.”
1-YEAR-OLD KILLED, 3 OTHERS SHOT AT COOKOUT IN NEW YORK CITY: POLICE
“I could turn this around in a month, one month if you let me bring back the cops that I want and the programs that I want, all of which have been held constitutional by the Clinton Justice Department,” Giuliani continued.
Giuliani made the comments as the NYPD has reported a staggering increase in shootings and violent crimes in recent weeks. On Saturday, the New York Post reported 15 shootings in 15 hours, just one week after the city saw a bloody July Fourth weekend with 44 shootings and at least eight killed.
According to statistics from the NYPD, New York City reported 28 incidents between Friday and Sunday. The NYPD reports a year-over-year increase of 600 percent in shooting incidents and a 483 percent increase in shooting victims.
A 1-year-old was shot and killed and three other people were injured late Sunday night at a family cookout in a Brooklyn park, according to authorities.
Reacting to the death of the 1-year-old over the weekend, de Blasio said on Monday, “This is not anything we can allow in our city and it’s heartbreaking."
"It’s heartbreaking for so many reasons and it begins with the fact that there is just so many guns out there and that is a New York tragedy and a national tragedy,” he continued.
Police departments nationwide have come under intense criticism in recent weeks amid the death of George Floyd, a black man, in the custody of a white Minneapolis police officer. Floyd’s death, and law enforcement’s crackdown on protesters, have ignited calls to reform police departments.
In June, the NYPD announced it was disbanding its anti-crime unit and reassigning hundreds of plainclothes officers to other divisions amid widespread criticism over the department’s handling of protests.
“I started that unit,” Giuliani pointed out on Wednesday. “It was originally called the Street Crime Unit. They’re the people who straightened out Times Square for me, they’re the people who straightened out Harlem and Bedford–Stuyvesant [in Brooklyn], and their expertise was taking guns from people.”
He noted that “bad people don't control their guns so you have to devise a strategy to do it.”
“We devised a strategy called stop, question and frisk,” he continued.
Giuliani said, “you got to get those guns and you got to do it quickly” and recommended bringing back the anti-crime unit.
He said most of the “right police officers” who are capable of getting guns off the street “are in the unit that he [de Blasio] disbanded, which makes no sense.”
Earlier this month, New York City lawmakers voted on budget changes that shifted $1 billion from the NYPD to programs that assist in youth and community development.
Giuliani said de Blasio “has to support the police” because “they don't trust him.”
“He’s got to get their trust back,” Giuliani added. “He has to tell them, ‘Look, I know you have to make tough decisions, I will support you if you are right. I'm not just going to turn you over to wolves. If you do like what happened in Minneapolis you go to jail for the rest of your life.’”
Giuliani told “Fox & Friends” that he won’t run for mayor of New York City again, but acknowledged that he has “to do something” to address the rise in violent crime.
“I put so much of my life into changing it and I was so proud of it,” Giuliani said.
“I was proud because [of] all the lives that we saved and also I think about the lives I lost doing it, it wasn't mine, it was the cops, 26 of them before Sept. 11 died trying to protect lives of Black people because they love them.”
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Fox News’ Courtney Crawford, Bradford Betz and Greg Norman contributed to this report.