Governor Paterson's decision to sign a bill outlawing the NYPD's electronic database of everyone they stop and frisk may have its roots in his own personal history of run-ins with the po-po. During an interview on the Steve Harvey show on WBLS, Paterson revealed that he was stopped three times by the police on Long Island when he was younger. "Two times, I'll tell you, I hadn't done anything wrong, but I certainly felt like I had when they left," Paterson said. Well, given Paterson's history of drug use, it's no surprise he felt a little guilty.
Two of the stops happened when he was in his teens, and the other when he was in his 20s. (One assumes each stop ended happily when police realized who his dad was.) But "for a lot of young people, that is a negative experience," Paterson told Harvey. Paterson's spokesman would not elaborate on the nature of the stops, but he told the Daily News, "He wasn't frisked. He has no idea if they kept records." If they did, they're now down the memory hole, thanks to the new law!
