At Sharpton Event, Kelly Discusses a Shared Concern With a Wary Audience

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly sat in the front row of a large hotel conference room on Wednesday morning, waiting for his turn to speak about New York City’s gun violence.

But first he had to take some ribbing from the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“We have the police commissioner of New York who has dealt with gun violence, even though he and I do not agree on other issues,” Mr. Sharpton said in his opening remarks at a multiday conference for his National Action Network. “We’re going to bring him on right after I stop and frisk him in the back.”

That brought laughter, hoots of approval and sustained applause.

“He knew I was going to say that but he came anyhow,” Mr. Sharpton said approvingly. Mr. Kelly offered a smile.

The two men, antagonists on many issues of police policy, have come to be occasional allies over the past three decades, especially on the subject of reducing the number of guns on the city’s streets.

Indeed, Mr. Kelly’s appearance on Wednesday at the Sheraton Hotel near Times Square was not his first at a conference hosted by Mr. Sharpton’s group. But it came at a time of heightened tension over the Police Department’s tactic of stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking people in minority neighborhoods of the city.

Just last month, Mr. Sharpton called for the suspension of a deputy inspector whose racially tinged comments on stop-and-frisk practices, secretly recorded by a subordinate officer, were prominently presented during a federal trial over the constitutionality of the tactic.

Mr. Kelly was at the Sheraton to speak on gun violence to the assembled hundreds, including elected officials and four major Democratic candidates for mayor.

City Comptroller John C. Liu, a candidate who has said he will replace Mr. Kelly if elected, had found a seat at the commissioner’s side, though it was not clear if their proximity led to any consequential discussions. Across the center aisle, two other candidates, William C. Thompson Jr. and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, sat together. They were separated from another hopeful, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, by a seat occupied by State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, who is running for public advocate.

There did not appear to be a seating chart.

Mr. Kelly, after thanking Mr. Sharpton for the invitation, offered a full-throated defense of the stop-and-frisk tactic, calling it “a lifesaver” and “fundamental to policing.”

He recited a litany of statistics comparing crime rates in minority neighborhoods like Brownsville, Brooklyn, to wealthier, whiter areas, like Murray Hill, Manhattan.

“African-Americans, who represent 23 percent of the city’s population, made up 64 percent of the murder victims and 71 percent of the shooting victims in this city last year,” he said. “As a city, as a society, we cannot stand idly by in the face of these facts.”

In addition to the Police Department’s flooding of high-crime neighborhoods with officers, Mr. Kelly described its “proactive policy of engagement.”

“We utilize the long-established right of the police to stop and question individuals about whom we have reasonable suspicion,” he said. “In some cases in which a weapon is suspected, the officer will take the additional step of doing a limited pat-down of the person. Typically, about half of all stops involve this measure, and only 9 percent involve a more thorough search.”

During Mr. Kelly’s remarks, the audience sat mostly stone-faced, clapping heartily only at the mention of Philip Banks III, who last week became the chief of department, the highest-ranking uniformed position.

Mr. Kelly, when he finished, received cordial applause.

“Thank you, Commissioner Kelly,” Mr. Sharpton said, taking the microphone. “We will continue to fight gun violence, but I want you to know we are still unequivocally opposed to stop-and-frisk in any form.”

He added, “You and I will continue to have that debate.”

Mr. Kelly, standing near a side door, nodded and said, “That’s right.”