NYC Mayor Stirs Debate After Saying Police Should Warn Public Over ‘Hurtful’ Behaviour

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has claimed that police officers should confront people in their homes if it deters other people from committing crime.

“Even if something is not a criminal case, a perpetrator being confronted by the city, whether it's NYPD or another agency, and being told that what they've done was very hurtful to another person [could prevent crime in the future]."

​“If someone has done something wrong, but not rising to a criminal level, it's perfectly appropriate for an NYPD officer to talk to them to say, ‘that was not appropriate, and if you did that on a higher level, that would be a crime. If an NYPD officer calls you or shows up at your door to ask you about something you did, it makes people think twice,” de Blasio argued.

He was speaking to reporters to address a rise in hate crime against Asian Americans, but his arguments were met with questions and counterarguments online.

​In the last week, Atlanta police increased their presence near Asian businesses following the shooting at three massage parlours in the area that killed eight, most of them women of Asian descent.

Bill de Blasio called Tuesday's shootings “domestic terrorism.”