Racial split in stop-and-frisk poll

By SALLY GOLDENBERG

Last Updated: 6:04 AM, August 17, 2012 Posted: 12:47 AM, August 17, 2012

New Yorkers are split along racial lines over the NYPD’s high-profile stop- and-frisk practice, a Quinnipiac poll released yesterday found.

Blacks opposed it by a 69-25 margin, while whites favored it, 57-37, and Hispanics backed it, 53-45.

Overall, New Yorkers disapproved of it, 50-45, according to the survey of 1,298 registered city voters last week.

Critics of the measure released a statement yesterday saying the poll showed stop-and- frisk will be a hot-button issue in the 2013 mayoral race.

But Mayor Bloomberg yesterday defended the practice as a life saver.

“We have crime problems in certain neighborhoods. That’s where we focus our police deployment and that’s where you would expect stop-and-frisks to be much higher, in neighborhoods where there is high crime,” he said during a Brooklyn press conference. “It’s not racist.”

Meanwhile, voters gave strong support to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and the NYPD.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents gave Kelly a thumbs-up and 57 percent said the police were doing a good job.