Federal Judge Who Shot Down Stop and Frisk Calls out Bloomberg AND Biden for False Claims in Debate

The federal judge who ruled New York City’s stop and frisk unconstitutional called out the city’s former mayor, Mike Bloomberg, and former Vice President Joe Biden for misinforming viewers about how the policy was ended during the Democratic debate.

Speaking with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, retired Judge Shira Scheindlin explained how neither Bloomberg nor the Obama administration had a hand in stopping the policy that struck down because it amounted to massive civil rights violations of minority men who were innocent of any crimes.

“What do people need to know about it and what, if anything, was incorrect in last night’s debate conversation?” Melber asked.

“It appeared to me, clear from the evidence, that what we had was racial profiling, going after a target group, which was young black males, 18 to 25. That’s what was going on,” Scheindlin said. “The police targeted themselves to those neighborhoods where they believed the crime was heaviest, but they also believed that’s where the criminals were heaviest. They went after these groups. The stops were mostly dry — 90% of the stops resulted in no further law enforcement action.”

“It really was a failed policy that terrorized, I would honestly say, not to mention humiliated, hundreds of thousands of young minority New Yorkers,” she added. “But I want to say the policy started before this mayor. It started with Mayor [Rudy] Giuliani. Bloomberg picked it up. Bloomberg expanded it enormously. It grew under him to its height in 2011.”

“What did people say last night that was wrong?” Scheindlin added, after Melber’s prompting. “Mayor Bloomberg said ‘When I realized it was bad towards the end, I ended it and it dropped 95%,” she noted. “That is not accurate. In the last two years or so, it began to drop dramatically, it dropped 67%, not 95%, but it wasn’t because he realized, had an epiphany that it was wrong, it was because of the court rulings.”

“Joe Biden said the Obama Administration stopped it. I thought you stopped it. Is Joe Biden correct?” Melber followed up.

“Of course he’s not,” Scheindlin replied. “Vice President Biden was totally wrong. He said the Obama administration appointed a federal monitor. Totally wrong. I appointed a federal monitor in August of 2013, who didn’t take office for 10 months, because Mayor Bloomberg insisted on trying to appeal my ruling in getting it overturned.”

“So, simply put, Joe Biden in your opinion took credit for something judges did?”

“That’s right,” Scheindlin confirmed.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.