Yesterday's post on New York's latest racial profiling kabuki (and the Times' disregard for the facts) inspired something of a brouhaha.

One big question that hasn't been asked about the NYPD reporting a 500% increase in stop and frisks since 2002: How is it that this incredible increase hasn't been written about, talked about or otherwise noticed until now?

It seems to me that either the new numbers, the 2002 numbers they're being compared with (the department has yet to release data for 03-05) or both likely have more to do with how paperwork is handled than with how the police do their jobs.

Nonetheless, the new data are being treated as an occasion for Al Sharpton and others to cry wolf about racial profiling. But any serious attempt to police high-crime areas means more interaction between civilians and the police, and does more damage to whoever sends the cops in than a high murder rate.

Which is why so many mayors, Daley in Chicago and Street in Philadelphia come to mind, keep certain parts of the city safe, while maintaining a minimal police presence in high crime, minority areas. That is, they've made a political choice that a high murder rate is a better deal for them than a large and aggressive police presence, with all the friction that inevitably causes. Giuliani and now Bloomberg, though, have to their credit kept crime down throughout the city.

Perhaps comparing New York to other cities is the best way to put it in perspective.

In Philadelphia, former city council member and Democratic candidate for mayor Michael Nutter is calling for a state of emergency to stop "the genocide" in a city that has nearly as many murders as New York with about a fifth of the population. Mayor Street, who's done little to protect resident of poor and troubled neighborhoods, instead points to “the Iraq war [as] a contributing factor in the frustrating increase in gun violence.”

In New Orleans, the justice system has collapsed to the point where according to the Times, people refer to misdemeanor murders when talking about the length of time suspects can be held without charges. The "stop snitching" code has more weight in muich of the city than the police. (To be fair, this also has a fair amount to do with the police there—I recall a friend from New Orleans visiting to New York who was very impressed to see police officers with their shirts tucked in, and who weren't smoking or inside the bars.)

Back to New York, it'll be interesting to see if Governor Spitzer weighs in. Back when he was the Attorney General, Spitzer compiled his own study of street stops after 1999's shooting of Amadou Diallo in the famous 41 shots incident, and it was based on his findings that the city passed a law allowing the Council to regularly review stop and frisk data.

And to see if Bloomberg's popularity among blacks, which was unaffected by the Sean Bell shooting, in which police shot an unarmed man the night before his wedding and then appear to have concocted a "fourth man" with a gun to justify the shooting, will be affected by the latest to-do. It would be fitting if a mayor of such illusory accomplishments were to escape blame when it was deserved, only to be blamed for numbers that signify very little.