NEW YORK _ Democratic presidential candidate and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he deployed "all the cops in minority neighborhoods" because that's where they'll find "all the crime" while defending "stop-and-frisk" in 2015, according to audio that resurfaced on social media.
The billionaire apologized for his administration's reliance on the controversial police tactic shortly before launching his 2020 presidential campaign, but during a speech to the Aspen Institute, Bloomberg argued minority neighborhoods are targeted "because that's where all the crime is."
He said that the policy is meant to save lives.
"Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops," Bloomberg said in February 2015. "They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That's true in New York, that's true in virtually every city. ... And that's where the real crime is. You've got to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed."
He said police must be put "where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods."
"So this is one of the unintended consequences is people say, 'Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities,'" he continued. "Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is."
He added that the way to get guns off the street and out of kids' hands "is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them."
"If you can stop them from getting murdered, I would argue everything else you do is less important," he noted.
President Donald Trump reacted to the comments in a since-deleted tweet Tuesday morning.
"WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!" Trump wrote.
Representatives for Bloomberg asked the Aspen Institute not to distribute footage of his speech, according to The Aspen Times, which reported on the comments at the time.
Bloomberg 2020 campaign reps had no immediate comment.
