The Brian Lehrer Show

Newsmakers meet New Yorkers as host Brian Lehrer and his guests take on the issues dominating conversation in New York and around the world. This daily program from WNYC Studios cuts through the usual talk radio punditry and brings a smart, humane approach to the day's events and what matters most in local and national politics, our own communities and our lives. WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts including Radiolab, On the Media, Death, Sex & Money, Nancy, and many others.

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Ted Cruz vs. Bill Bratton on the Cryptic NYPD Demographics Unit


First, let's catch you up to speed.

In the immediate aftermath of the Brussels attacks on March 22, 2016, Ted Cruz issued a statement:

"We will do what we can to help them fight this scourge, and redouble our efforts to make sure it does not happen here…We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”

He went on to refer directly to the NYPD's now defunct Demographics Unit, a secret division that monitored Muslim
communities after 9/11.

"In New York City, Mayor de Blasio succumbed to unfounded criticisms and eliminated the efforts of law enforcement to work with Muslim communities to stop radical Islamic terrorism.”

In response, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton penned an op-ed in the Daily News claiming Ted Cruz knows "absolutely nothing" about counterterrorism efforts in New York City. Here's part of what he said:

"[Cruz] tried to depict the demise of the unit, as other ill-informed observers have done, as a knuckling under to the forces of political correctness rather than the sensible administrative decision that it was. The fact is that the former administration had allowed the unit to dwindle down to two investigators. Why? Because the work of the unit, which was to map the ethnic makeup of the city to better understand the domain of the New York metropolitan area, was finished."

So how accurate are Cruz's and Bratton's assessments of the Demographics Unit, its function and its actual accomplishments? Here to explain: Murray Weiss, columnist and criminal justice editor for DNAInfo.


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 March 31, 2016  16m