Analysis: Since stop & frisk was struck down, gun shootings & ...

12y ago Sep 30, 2013 at 8:42 PM

Since stop & frisk was struck down, gun shootings & victims have spiked-- while gun seizures have decreased. http://t.co/aIUe2dSaNf

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AI Analysis

Machine-generated analysis of the post above on 2026-02-26. Not written by the author of the post.

Danger Level

None

Narcissistic State

Grandiose

Authorship

Uncertain

Intensity

20%

This September 2013 post documents an early, low-intensity instance of Trump deploying cherry-picked crime statistics to advocate for stop-and-frisk policing following the Floyd v. City of New York ruling. The psychological pattern is characteristic but subdued: the pragmatic truth-teller presenting 'the data' to vindicate his prior position while implicitly condemning judicial overreach. The rhetorical core is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy — 28-day post-ruling NYPD data (shootings +13%, victims +9%, seizures −17%) is presented as causal evidence, without the long-term context showing crime continued its secular decline as stops fell 98% over the following four years. Authorship is ambiguous; business-hours timing and polished format suggest aide involvement, while the topic represents an authentic long-running personal interest. Clinically, the post is unremarkable — none of the narcissistic rage, paranoid features, or cognitive markers visible in later posts are evident here. Its primary research value is longitudinal: this 2013 tweet documents the early formation of a law-and-order narrative frame — functioning policy, activist court, predictable harm — that Trump reproduced nearly verbatim in the September 2016 presidential debate and across his campaign. The rhetorical and psychological template was stable across at least 13 years, suggesting genuine ideological commitment rather than opportunistic positioning.

Authorship Analysis

Uncertain

Indicators:

4:42 PM EDT falls within business hours — primary aide indicator
No typos, complete sentences, correct grammar throughout
Data-citation format and link-sharing pattern consistent with curated content distribution
Topic (stop-and-frisk, NYC crime policy) is an authentic long-running personal interest for Trump
Brief, punchy framing consistent with Trump's voice on this specific policy

Psychological Profile

▶ State

Grandiose State

Trigger: Supply Seeking (Floyd v. City of New York ruling (August 12, 2013) — 7 weeks prior)

Sentiment

-0.20

▶ Clinical

Malignant Narcissism:

Narcissistic

25%

Antisocial

15%

Paranoid

10%

Sadism

Defense Mechanisms:

rationalizationdenial

Cognitive Complexity:

Complexity

40%

Parasocial Techniques:

vindication narrative — presenting data to followers as confirmation of shared prior judgment

Danger Assessment

None

Gaslighting Detected:

Post-hoc causal framing presents temporal sequence (ruling → short-term statistics) as established causation without qualification
28-day cherry-picked window is presented as representative trend while omitting long-term data that contradicts the claim
Structural omission of the constitutional and racial discrimination findings that drove the ruling, framing it purely as a crime-control error

Reality Distortions:

Implies direct causal relationship between court ruling and crime statistics from correlation over a narrow 28-day window
Presents a provisional short-term data point as a confirmed trend without acknowledging confounders or long-term contrary evidence

Fact Checks (3)

"Since stop & frisk was struck down, gun shootings have spiked"

Half True

Short-term (28-day window ending Sept 8, 2013): shootings +13% (140 vs 124 in 2012 comparison period) — factually accurate. However, long-term data shows no causal link; NYC murders continued declining as S&F stops dropped from 685,000 (2011) to ~10,800 (2017). Causal attribution is unsupported and the window is cherry-picked.

"Gunshot victims have spiked since stop & frisk was struck down"

Half True

Short-term: 164 gunshot victims vs 150 in same 2012 period (+9.3%) — factually accurate for the window. Same long-term caveat applies; Brennan Center analysis found no statistically significant relationship between S&F volume and crime rates.

"Gun seizures have decreased since stop & frisk was struck down"

Mostly True

Short-term: 239 guns seized vs 289 in same 2012 period (−17.3%) — factually accurate for the stated window. Causal attribution to the ruling remains contested; Commissioner Kelly declined to attribute the decrease directly to the ruling.

Receipts

No contradictions with other posts detected yet.

Authorship Attribution

Post timestamp: 20:42 UTC = 16:42 EDT (4:42 PM, New York)

Trump was almost certainly in New York on this date; no travel events are indicated. The 4:42 PM EDT timing falls squarely within business hours, which is the primary indicator of aide-drafted content. Supporting aide-attribution: no typos, fully correct grammar, data-citation format, and link-sharing pattern consistent with curated content distribution. Against aide-attribution: stop-and-frisk was a topic of demonstrably authentic personal interest to Trump throughout this period and into his 2016 campaign; the implicit "I told you so" vindication framing is consistent with his voice; the post is brief and punchy rather than formally composed.

Verdict: Ambiguous, slight lean toward aide-curated (score: 0.40). Most likely scenario is aide identified the CBS New York article and drafted or triggered the post, possibly with Trump's approval or direction, given his established interest in this specific policy.

Context: The Floyd Ruling and Linked Article

On August 12, 2013 — seven weeks before this post — Judge Scheindlin ruled in Floyd v. City of New York that the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, constituting racially discriminatory policing (84% of stops were Black or Latino; 88% of all stops yielded no arrest or summons). The linked t.co URL almost certainly directed to CBS New York's contemporaneous reporting on NYPD internal data covering the 28-day window ending September 8, 2013, which showed: shootings +13% (140 vs. 124), gunshot victims +9% (164 vs. 150), gun seizures −17% (239 vs. 289).

Rhetorical Analysis

The post's rhetorical architecture rests on a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: the Floyd ruling preceded a short-term crime increase, therefore the ruling caused the increase. This ignores seasonal variation, regression to the mean, the 7-week lag, and the long-term trend — which showed NYC murders continuing to decline as stop-and-frisk dropped from 685,000 stops annually (2011) to under 11,000 by 2017.

The appeal to statistics provides false precision to what is fundamentally an ideological position. The cherry-picked window (28 days, one data point) is used to make a systemic causal claim. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly himself acknowledged the statistics but declined to attribute them to the ruling. Trump has no such hedging.

Psychological State and Triggers

This is a low-intensity, maintenance/supply-seeking post with embedded vindication narrative. The trigger is distal (the ruling, 7 weeks prior) rather than immediate. There is no acute narcissistic injury visible; the post functions as evidence-accumulation for a prior ideological position.

The narcissistic state, to the degree it registers at all, is mildly grandiose — the implicit "I told you so" posture of the pragmatic realist whose warnings went unheeded and whose predictions are now borne out by data.

Narrative Identity (Level 3 — McAdams)

Protagonist role: The evidence-based pragmatist who sees reality clearly while ideologically captured judges and politicians make harmful decisions. Contamination sequence: functioning crime-control policy → activist judicial overreach → predictable civic harm. Contrasting other: abstract "pandering politicians" / liberal judiciary who prioritize ideology over empirical public safety. This narrative thread is documented here in 2013 and recurs verbatim in Trump's 2016 presidential debates, making this post a useful longitudinal baseline for tracking the rhetorical stability of this frame.

Defense Mechanisms

Minimal clinical significance in this post. Rationalization (neurotic): selectively mobilizing short-term statistics to justify a predetermined policy preference. Mild denial (pathological register, but weak expression): the constitutional and racial discrimination findings driving the ruling are structurally absent from the post's causal framing — the policy is implicitly cast as purely pragmatic crime-control with no acknowledgment of the rights violations documented over 4.4 million stops.

Cognitive Assessment

No markers of concern. Single-sentence claim, coherent logical structure (if causally flawed), appropriate use of statistical citation. Consistent with Trump's 2013 Twitter baseline.

Danger Assessment

None. This is conventional policy argumentation with cherry-picked data. No eliminationist language, dehumanization, or stochastic terrorism indicators are present. The advocacy for a practice found to constitute racial profiling carries civil liberties implications but is within the register of political speech rather than incitement.

Longitudinal Significance

This is an early and well-preserved data point in the stop-and-frisk narrative thread. Trump would invoke essentially the same argument — "crime rose when S&F was taken away" — during the 2016 presidential debates (September 26, 2016), in response to Charlotte protests, and repeatedly on the campaign trail. The consistency of the rhetorical frame across 13+ years suggests this is a genuine ideological position rather than opportunistic campaign rhetoric, and that the 2013 tweet predates any electoral motivation.

Fact Verification

Claim	Verdict	Evidence
"Since stop & frisk was struck down, gun shootings have spiked"	Half True	Short-term (28-day window ending Sept 8, 2013): shootings +13% (140 vs 124 in 2012 comparison period) — factually accurate. However, long-term data shows no causal link; NYC murders continued declining as S&F stops dropped from 685,000 (2011) to ~10,800 (2017). Causal attribution is unsupported and the window is cherry-picked.
"Gunshot victims have spiked since stop & frisk was struck down"	Half True	Short-term: 164 gunshot victims vs 150 in same 2012 period (+9.3%) — factually accurate for the window. Same long-term caveat applies; Brennan Center analysis found no statistically significant relationship between S&F volume and crime rates.
"Gun seizures have decreased since stop & frisk was struck down"	Mostly True	Short-term: 239 guns seized vs 289 in same 2012 period (−17.3%) — factually accurate for the stated window. Causal attribution to the ruling remains contested; Commissioner Kelly declined to attribute the decrease directly to the ruling.

Overall Veracity: 60%