Mike Bloomberg says the controversial "stop-and-frisk" policy represents the singular thing he's "really worried about and embarrassed about" from his time as New York City mayor.
Bloomberg said during Wednesday night's Democratic debate in Las Vegas that he has repeatedly apologized for the policy, which gave police wide authority to detain people they suspected of committing a crime.
Bloomberg aggressively pursued the tactic when he first took over as mayor in 2002. A federal judge found in 2013 that stop and frisk intentionally and systematically violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of people by wrongly targeting black and Hispanic men.
Bloomberg blasted the ruling at the time, calling it a "dangerous decision made by a judge who I think does not understand how policing works and what is compliant with the U.S. Constitution."
Former Vice President Joe Biden argued that the policy stopped only after the Obama administration "sent in monitors" to observe the process.