City Council to vote on Bloomberg overrides Thursday

City Council members are scheduled to vote Thursday afternoon on overriding Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto of two controversial bills aimed at creating an inspector general for the NYPD and barring racial profiling when conducting stop and frisks.

The bills come up for a vote against a backdrop of increased rhetoric from mayoral candidates about the measures and continued resistance from Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who has said that meddling with the controversial stop-and-frisk measures would lead to increases in violent crime.

Supporters of the bills need to secure at least 34 votes out of 51 council seats to assure overriding Bloomberg. The inspector general provision, whose backers include council speaker and mayoral candidate Christine Quinn, have a comfortable margin to override since the measure passed in June by a vote of 40 to 11.

But the bias profiling bill, aimed at curtailing stop-and-frisk activity by banning racial or other bias in police activity while making it easier to file a lawsuit against officers, passed with only a razor-thin margin of 34-17. Quinn opposes the bill. A loss of one vote would uphold Bloomberg's veto.

On Wednesday, Quinn took to the steps of City Hall to highlight her support of the inspector general provision, which she contends would help cut down on unconstitutional stops.

"An inspector general of the NYPD, in the Department of Investigation, with subpoena power, will help review and provide guidance to assure that stop and frisk is done constitutionally," Quinn said.

"As mayor, I will ensure that unconstitutional stops end and the overall numbers of stops will go down," Quinn said.

Told about Kelly's recent statement that murders would increase if stop and frisk is tampered with, Quinn said she wasn't worried about increased bloodshed on city streets, and noted that after Los Angeles added an inspector general in 1995, crime went down 33 percent the following year.

A review of media reports and Los Angeles crime statistics showed that in 1996 serious crime dropped 11.6 percent in the city and continued to drop about 10 percent a year until 2000. Los Angeles' homicides also decreased, although its rate per 100,000 remains higher than New York City's.

Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis blasted both measures as dangerous legislation, which he called "loony."

"The professional politicians in the City Council should be ashamed of themselves," Catsimatidis said. "They must be held responsible for the criminal acts that will take place due to this loony legislation."