By Philip Newman
Almost two-thirds of New York City adults believe the Staten Island grand jury should have brought criminal charges against a police officer in the death of Eric Garner last summer, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.
The poll also indicated that New Yorkers think the federal government should charge the officer with violating Garner’s civil rights and that people of color are not treated fairly by the city’s criminal justice system.
The poll also found a majority approves of the job Bill de Blasio is doing as mayor.
The poll indicated that New Yorkers are almost evenly divided on whether they think race relations in the city are generally good or bad, down considerable from a year ago when by a 2-to1 margin, including strong majorities of blacks, whites and Latinos, New Yorkers said race relations in the city were generally good.
The poll gave Police Commissioner Bill Bratton a divided 43-40 approval rating and only 44 percent said New York City police are doing an excellent or good job, compared to 55 percent who say they are doing a fair to poor job.
“While 50 percent of white New Yorkers feel the grand jury should have indicted the officer in the Garner case, 73 percent of Latino and 85 percent of black adults feel that way. Similarly, 86 percent of black and 76 percent of Latino New Yorkers feel the feds should bring civil rights charges against the officer, while white adults are evenly divided, 42-42 percent,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.
He pointed out that the poll found that83 percent of blacks, 71 percent of Latinos and 45 percent of whites believe people of color are not treated fairly.
“In addition to the racial divides on these questions, there is also a strong partisan divide,” Greenberg said. “More than two-thirds of Democrats say the grand jury should have indicted, federal charges should have brought and people of color are treated unfairly in the criminal justice system.
But among Republicans, who account for10 percent of New Yorkers, only 47 percent say the grand jury should have indicted, a majority say the feds should not bring charges and a majority say that people of color are treated fairly in the city’s criminal justice system, Greenberg said.
“Independents are much closer to Democrats on these issues than they are to Republicans,” he noted.
By a 52-32 margin, New Yorkers approve of the way De Blasio is handling his job as mayor- virtually unchanged from 49-31 percent in April.
New Yorkers have confidence in de Blasio’s ability to deal with a serious crisis by a 63-37 percent margin. By a 64-30 percent margin they are confident in his ability to hire effective and competent people in his administration.
Bratton, with an overall 43-40 percent job approval, gets high marks from whites and Republicans but breaks even with Democrats and independents. He gets a thumbs-down from a plurality of Latinos and blacks.
New Yorkers are closely divided 48-47 percent on whether De Blasio is focused on issues important to them — down from 58-37 percent in April. They continue to believe, however, that he cares about their problems, 64-33, down a little from 70-27 percent.
