The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: bill bratton
De Blasio On New York Police Turning Their Backs: ‘Disrespectful To The Families’

De Blasio On New York Police Turning Their Backs: ‘Disrespectful To The Families’

By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

NEW YORK — In his first public comments on the staging of silent protests by police officers angry at him, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that officers showed no respect for the families of two slain colleagues when they took their demonstrations to the men’s funerals.

At a news conference held to trumpet the latest low crime figures, de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton both had harsh words for the hundreds of officers who turned their backs when de Blasio delivered a eulogy Sunday at the funeral for NYPD detective Wenjian Liu.

Officers did the same thing Dec. 27 during the funeral for Liu’s partner, Rafael Ramos. Both men were killed Dec. 20 by a gunman who had posted anti-police rants online.

“They were disrespectful to the families who lost their loved ones,” said de Blasio, who has been accused by police union leaders of creating a hostile environment for police that contributed to the officers’ slayings. “I can’t understand why anyone would do such a thing in a context like that.”

Bratton, who had urged officers to refrain from staging protests at Liu’s funeral, said he was disappointed that his appeal had been ignored by many police.

“What was the need in the middle of that ceremony to engage in that political action?” Bratton said. “I just don’t understand it.”

The president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Associaton, Patrick Lynch, defended the officers’ actions during Liu’s funeral, which drew thousands of police from across the country.

“We have a right to have our opinion heard like everyone else that protests out in the city,” Lynch told reporters after the service. “We did it respectfully out here in the street, not inside the church, not during the service.”

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said Monday on Fox’s Good Day New York that he understood Bratton’s position but that the commissioner’s memo appealing for a halt to police protests at the funerals had “almost infuriated the rank and file.” Many officers felt that Bratton was doing the mayor’s “bidding,” Mullins said.

There has long been tension between the police unions and the mayor’s office over issues that include contracts and retirement plans, but differences came to a head last July after protests erupted over the death of an unarmed man, Eric Garner, during a scuffle with police on Staten Island.

As the protests continued through the summer and fall, police accused de Blasio of indulging demonstrators and not supporting the Police Department, which de Blasio vowed to reform when he took office last January.

After Liu and Ramos were killed, Lynch blamed de Blasio in part for the ambush, saying the mayor had ushered in a climate of hostility toward officers.

Lynch said a meeting last month with de Blasio to try to alleviate tensions did not resolve the problems. De Blasio, though, said Monday that he thought the meeting was “productive” because it included a “straightforward dialogue” about the issue of officer safety.

“I don’t think we went into the room expecting instant resolution,” he said.

Neither side has said what comes next.

AFP Photo/Spencer Platt

New York Police Commissioner Criticizes Officers Who Turned Backs On Mayor

New York Police Commissioner Criticizes Officers Who Turned Backs On Mayor

By David Willman, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton Sunday rebuked members of his department who publicly turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at a funeral for a slain police officer.

The protest occurred Saturday when the mayor spoke at the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos, one of two patrolmen killed on Dec. 20 by an assailant who had vowed to avenge the deaths of blacks at the hands of police.

The mayor has been criticized by a police union leader and others for some of his remarks about relations between police and blacks, and for his administration’s closeness with Al Sharpton, the minister and cable television talk show host.

Scores of officers turned their backs when De Blasio’s remarks at the funeral were broadcast outside on a giant video screen.

“I think it was very inappropriate at that event,” Bratton said on CBS’s Face the Nation. The funeral was to honor the life of Ramos, not to air grievances over politics, he said.

Bratton’s leadership of the Police Department in the 1990s and, from 2002 to 2009, of the Los Angeles Police Department, has been credited with helping to lower crime rates. But he acknowledged the tensions while defending his officers.

Bratton said that since Ramos and Officer Wenjian Liu were shot and killed, the Police Department has investigated “over 50 incidents or reported threats against” city police. The cases have resulted in nine arrests, he said.

Bratton conceded that “morale in the department at this time is low.”

He cited a number of causes, including pending contract negotiations between the city and a police union.

He blamed growing tensions in part on “pent-up frustrations” related to economic disparities and mutual perceptions of disrespect.

In a separate appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Bratton recalled his experience with defusing racial tensions in Los Angeles and said citizens and law enforcement need to “see each other … not look past each other.”

Bratton called for “hard work, a lot less rhetoric,” and mutual respect.

“We have a lot of talking that we’re going to have to do here to understand all sides of this issue,” he said.

AFP Photo/Spencer Platt

Bratton Defends City, NYPD After Cop Anger Over Shootings

Bratton Defends City, NYPD After Cop Anger Over Shootings

By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

The assassination of two New York cops has reopened a debate about how a police department, often under fierce political strains, can deal with a civilian authority of elected officials.

New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton took to the airways Tuesday morning to defend his department as some disgruntled police and Mayor Bill de Blasio called a truce in their battle over responsibility for the shootings and recent anti-police protests to allow New York to mourn its dead.

“We’re in a very difficult place at the moment,” Bratton said on CBS This Morning, adding, “in the sense of officers’ feelings about the demonstrations, about the anti-police mood that seems to be sweeping the country of late, and it’s not easy being a cop in America today, the dangers that still exist despite crime having gone down fairly dramatically over the last 20 years.”

Bratton, whose city is mourning the weekend shootings of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, defended both his department and the man who rehired him, de Blasio, whose standing with police has never been high and has ebbed in the last year as programs such as stop-and-frisk were ended.

“It’s a tough job, as we’ve seen, in some instances, a thankless job,” Bratton said. “Despite that, I’ll speak for my city — they’ve done a remarkable job, they’re keeping crime down, they’ve been restrained when face-to-face with demonstrators, you know, ‘Kill the cops’ and the language that’s directed at them.”

Bratton was referring to a series of demonstrations that began when a grand jury decided not to indict a Ferguson police officer in the shooting of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown. The demonstrations accelerated when a Staten Island grand jury late last month decided not to indict a New York officer who used a chokehold to subdue Eric Garner, an unarmed African-American man. Garner died after the confrontation.

In the series of demonstrations, some protesters reviled city police. Breakaway demonstrators clashed on the Brooklyn Bridge on Dec. 13 and several officers, including two police lieutenants were injured, scraping nerves even more raw.

Bratton said the NYPD has ramped up security measures, including directing officers to work in teams and suspending auxiliary patrols, while investigators learn more about cop killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who committed suicide after fleeing the shooting scene in Brooklyn on Saturday.

In the case of Brinsley, Bratton said the NYPD is investigating questions including “where did he get his money? Who does he hang out with? He doesn’t seem to have been employed; he’s a couch crasher as they call it. He doesn’t seem to have a residence, he just crashes on somebody’s couch. But he did seem to have money — cash in hundred dollar bills. So we’re checking very closely all of his relationships. What was his world like?”

Aside from the investigative details of the shooting, the political fallout remains a question. The current truce to allow funerals for the slain officers will expire and de Blasio and union leaders will have to develop a working relationship, especially because union contracts will be negotiated this year.

At a news conference on Monday, Bratton challenged the media, who were questioning him and the mayor about City Hall’s relations with police.

“Can you point out to me one mayor who has not been battling with police unions in the last 50 years? Name one,” Bratton said. “The experience of this mayor of some cops not liking him, it’s nothing new.”

New York has often been the scene of fierce battles between its elected officials and public employees, especially police. Changes in the department to make it more accountable to civilian officials have led to problems.

For example, in 1992, when then-Mayor David Dinkins was pushing for a more independent civilian complaint review board, thousands of off-duty cops demonstrated at City Hall. The protest quickly turned into a riot where cops hurled racial epithets at the city’s African-American mayor.

Rudolph Giuliani, then just a contender, was famously present to back the unruly cops against the Dinkins administration, helping solidify his reputation as a crime fighter by visibly supporting police. Giuliani, now a private security consultant, has also been recently visible on television backing police.

De Blasio repeatedly says that he is not anti-police, but elements in his department dispute that. They complain about his comments in the wake of the Ferguson grand jury decision.

“This is profoundly personal for me,” de Blasio said a Dec. 3 news conference about the grand jury action. De Blasio is married to a black woman and they have a teenage son, Dante, whose image captivated New York during the mayoral campaign.

The mayor said he and his wife, Chirlane McCray, saw the crisis over how police operate in the minority community through a personal lens “because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years, about the dangers he may face. A good young man, a law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong, and yet, because of a history that still hangs over us … we’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.”

The police also fault de Blasio for not speaking out against the demonstrators, especially when they shouted anti-cop slogans.

“There’s blood on many hands tonight,” Patrolman’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said late Saturday after the shootings. “Those that incited violence on this street under the guise of protest, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did every day.

“We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated,” Lynch said. “That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor.”

Meanwhile, the city continued to prepare for the funerals set to begin to this weekend.

Officer Ramos is scheduled to be buried on Saturday. Arrangements for Liu are pending.

Liu’s wife, Pei Xia Chen, gave a tearful statement to reporters Monday evening.

“This is a difficult time for both of our families,” she said, expressing her condolences to Ramos’ widow and children. “But we will stand together and get through this together.”

AFP Photo/Spencer Platt