Ray Kelly Sounds Off On Low Crime Without Mentioning ‘Stop & Frisk’ Once

Word of life advice: if you ignore something, that doesn’t mean it will go away.

Yesterday morning, NYPD commish Ray Kelly delivered his ‘State of the NYPD’ address at the Waldorf Astoria. The police chief, riding high off a recent poll that showed his approval ratings at the highest ever for someone in his position, basically detailed the progress report of the Bloomberg administration.

Combined with record low homicide rate (which may be on the rise this year) and a general decline amongst most other crimes (save for iPhone theft), the commish laid out an overall safer City in 2012, one which will “go down in history as the year New York City recorded the fewest homicides since Senator John F. Kennedy announced his run for the presidency in 1960.”

The recovery efforts made by the law enforcement authorities during Hurricane Sandy were set in the background as well.

However, possibly due to recent constitutionality issues, the head of the Boys in Blue failed to mention what will inevitably go down in the history books for his time in office: the controversial use of the practice known as ‘stop & frisk.’ That isn’t to say Kelly avoided it all together; instead, he called it aggressive policing in ‘minority neighborhoods,’ which adds a nice touch to a not-so-nice practice.

But he did touch upon the aforementioned ruling, calling it a “judicial setback,” but that didn’t hold him back from trumping up the practice’s results. Kelly credited the pseudo-term with making the streets more gun-free: “since 2002, with the help of these strategies, we’ve taken approximately 8,000 weapons annually off the street, 800 of them illegal guns.”

Echoing off this sentiment, he gave a shout-out to his boss for pushing the gun control matter nationwide post-Newtown.

But, as these legal matters continue to accumulate, it’ll be harder and harder for the NYPD Commissioner to avoid the subject all together. It works well in an address meant to spotlight success but, in a courtroom, it’s a completely different story.