A question on stop-and-frisk led to a blowup at a mayoral forum on public safety.

"The people over here," former City Comptroller Scott Stringer said, motioning toward the other mayoral candidates who are white. "We're not getting stopped, questioned or frisked — that's just the reality."

Jim Walden, an independent mayoral candidate, interjected.

"That is a lame way to use the race card," Walden said.

Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos recounted her story of being stopped and frisked by the police.

"I'm someone who was stopped and frisked. I was 19 years old," she said.  

Stop-and-frisk is a policing tactic more widely used under Mayor Eric Adams than his predecessor.

The exchange between mayoral candidates happened at a Roosevelt House forum on public safety.

The Democratic candidates who participated were City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, City Comptroller Brad Lander, hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, Ramos and Stringer. Walden, an anti-trust attorney, is an independent candidate in the race.

Three candidates — Stringer, Tilson and Walden — argued for hiring more cops.

"We need to get back about 10% more officers to where we were five years ago, when crime was at a historic low," Tilson said.

"Let's hire 3,000 more police officers so that we can begin to really put not just police surging in the subway but actually sustain a police presence on the streets, below ground," Stringer said. "Deter people from committing crime."

Lander said he'd just raise the NYPD headcount to its budgeted total of 35,000 officers. 

This, after endorsing the Defund the Police movement years past.

"There was a movement for police accountability that unfortunately did not achieve police accountability or put more resource in neighborhoods," Lander said.

Instead of adding police, the other candidates criticized how NYPD is managed.

"I think it's really tough for many New Yorkers to think about increasing the number of police officers," Ramos said, pointing to instances of police congregating, instead of patrolling.

"They are grossly mismanaged," Speaker Adams said of the police.

On bringing down violent crime to pre-pandemic levels, she discussed her advocacy of violence interrupters to settle neighborhood disputes and trauma recovery centers.

"We take a look at the trauma and we move them into therapy and therapeutic spaces where they can get help, where they don't have to continue to live out cycles of violence but we can actually stop cycles of violence," Speaker Adams said.

Walden blamed police staffing and recruitment problems on new liberal criminal justice laws.

"They're leaving the city because they keep being told by elected officials how to do their jobs," Walden said. 

Another issue - quality of life and the low-level crimes that sour city living.

Tilson took a tough stance.

"When I'm mayor, I'm going to make crime illegal," Tilson said. "I think my colleagues here are largely dodging the issue."

Others had a technocratic approach, like Lander on retail theft.

"Use technology to make it easier for stores to report when it's happening," Lander said.

Stringer said he'd appoint a deputy mayor for quality of life.

"We're going to align the agencies with the police, but mostly without the police, to get agencies to do the quality of life work that police should not be doing," Stringer said.

While Speaker Adams wanted to make sure low-level criminal enforcement doesn't send people to Rikers.

"That is outrageous to me, why we are building the numbers of Rikers when we should be bringing those numbers down," she said, calling Rikers Island "a death camp."

Three candidates — Speaker Adams, Lander and Tilson — said they'd want to keep Jessica Tisch in charge of the NYPD.