Ray Kelly, the NYPD's longest-running commissioner ever and one of the people responsible for its current status as a violent law-enforcement behemoth, is still talking about stop-and-frisk. If Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn't appeal last year's federal lawsuit against the department's use of the tactic, he said yesterday, "people will suffer."

The remark, made in an interview with WNYC and reproduced in this morning's Capital Playbook, referred to a class-action suit in which a judge ordered reforms to the department like body cameras, revised training materials, and a federally-appointed monitor:

I think the lawsuit was an abomination. The judge was removed from the case and I think every indication is if the appeal were allowed to go forward, it would have been reversed and it's a shame Mayor de Blasio did that because I think people will suffer. You see shootings up now; I don't know if there's a direct relationship now, maybe time will tell.

Never mind the thousands and thousands of black and latino people who have suffered for years precisely because of the baldly racist tactic. Mayor Bloomberg, Kelly's old boss, planned to fight the verdict, but de Blasio announced his plans to settle shortly after taking office this year.

[Image via AP]