By David Greene
BRONX, NEW YORK, July 26- A former Marine from Bedford Park has come out with a new video headed for YouTube, where he defends the NYPD's right in the 'stop and frisk' issue, now pointing to two incidents in his life, one being shot in the south Bronx, while driving a livery taxi-- and more recently, when young punks threw garbage at him in a subway near his home.
Over the years, Ronald James Sorenson, 73, a self-taught lobbyist, has come to the aid of the American flag, defending, "Old Glory," from flag-burning, he has walked to Washington, DC., carrying a monkey, to force law-makers to take a second look at a citizen's right to have exotic pets.
After a recent incident in Kingsbridge, Sorenson, a former member of the U.S. Marine's Boxing Team, decided to make the two-minute video in support of the NYPD. He recalled, "I was coming out of the subway and passed these young kids and as I passed, they threw garbage at me."
In his day, Sorenson would have flattened the trio, but now says, "These days you don't know who has a gun or who will shoot you for absolutely no reason."
Sorenson knows about being shot, he was driving a livery cab in 1969, when he was held-up in the Fort Apache section of the Bronx. Sorenson recalls, "They shot me in one leg and it went through and hit me in the other leg."
Believing that the day of the suicide bomber coming to the New York City Transit system-- is right around the corner, Sorenson adds, "I'm all for Civil rights, but stop and frisk will save lives. The sooner they realize that, the more lives will be saved."
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NYPD's own statistics, the police department has conducted 4 million stop and frisk searches since 2002, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office.
With 685,724 of those stop and frisks taking place in 2011, some 600,000 or 88 percent of those stopped were completely innocent of any crime.
On Tuesday, June 26, a Manhattan Appellate court supported Justice Peter Tom's decision to exclude a gun as evidence, after a Bronx cop arrested a teen found to be carrying the gun during a stop and frisk search.
On May 16, a federal judge approved a class-action lawsuit against the NYPD relating to stop and frisk.
Sorenson's, 'Stop and frisk' video can be found at:
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