MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell said Tuesday that New York City police officers who seized drugs from suspects during stop-and-frisks were hypocritical because they "have almost all used those same drugs themselves" and were only attempting to justify their searches if they did not find illegal weapons.
O'Donnell, a fierce opponent of stop-and-frisk, did not cite any studies or figures in his claim about cops previously using drugs, which would include cocaine and heroin:
O'DONNELL: When police reach into an African American teenager's pockets, that's what they're hoping to find. That's the goal of stop-and-frisk: taking a gun off the street or any other deadly weapons like knives. But no weapon is as deadly as a gun, so a gun is the goal. Of course, the cops are perfectly happy to find drugs in those pockets to justify their stopping and frisking, but the cops have almost all used those same drugs themselves, the very same drugs in their teenage years. And they know that pulling a few joints out of a kid's pocket isn't exactly stopping a major crime in progress.
