Related: NYC Cops Out of Control
"After chokehold death, NYPD clashes with mayor; Officers contend de Blasio seems to be antipolice" by Tom Hays | Associated Press August 10, 2014
NEW YORK — Police have become increasingly at odds with Mayor Bill de Blasio about the appearance he is taking sides against them after the chokehold death of a black suspect last month — a conflict that has prompted the city’s top law enforcement official to do damage control by calling the mayor ‘‘very pro-cop.’’
And after he dropped his opposition to stop-and-frisk! How ungrateful!
What angered many was a recent forum in which the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the biggest critics of the New York Police Department, was seated alongside the mayor, a liberal Democrat, and Police Commissioner William Bratton as Sharpton lambasted law enforcement and suggested the mayor’s mixed-race son would be a ‘‘candidate for a chokehold’’ if he were an ordinary New Yorker. The image was seized on by critics of the administration and plastered on the cover of the New York Post with the headline ‘‘Who’s the Boss!’’
‘‘It is outrageously insulting to all police officers to say that we go out on our streets to choke all people of color as Al Sharpton stated while seated at the table right next to our mayor at City Hall,’’ said Patrick Lynch, head of the powerful Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Another union official, Ed Mullins of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, hinted at a work slowdown at the nation’s largest police department.
Ah, some relief for New Yorkers.
Related: LBJ Overshadows MLK
That's offensive, too.
Maybe if you guys had slowed down Mr. Garner would still be alive. All over cigarette taxes?
Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani even weighed in, saying in a radio interview that de Blasio made a ‘‘big mistake. . . . setting up a press conference like that and putting a police commissioner in that situation. That’s extremely damaging to the police commissioner, to keep up the morale of the police.’’
Who cares about the citizenry under oppressive jackboot?
Cui bono?
E-mails have circulated among police officers showing a mock identification card with a picture of Sharpton and the title ‘‘Police Commissioner.’’ The activist has shot back by claiming he has the ear of federal officials who have the authority to bring civil rights charges in the death of Eric Garner.
I believe he does. Plus he has his gown TV show on MSNBC.
‘‘It is time to have a mature conversation about policing rather than immature name calling and childish attempts to scapegoat,’’ Sharpton said in a statement.
Bratton responded to the uproar by giving a series of interviews Friday defending his department’s record on race and de Blasio’s attitude toward the department.
‘‘We are not a racist organization,’’ Bratton told the Associated Press. ‘‘And I will challenge anybody despite their perceptions of police on that issue. This is a department that goes where the problems are — whether it’s crime or disorder.’’
That includes sending spies into mosques.
De Blasio, he added, ‘‘is very pro-cop. . . . This is not an antipolice mayor.’’
I knew that. He's also the new voice of Occupy Wall Street, or so I was told.
The rift stems from Garner’s arrest on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island. Amateur video appears to show an officer putting the asthmatic, 350-pound father of six in a banned chokehold after he refused to be handcuffed. He yells, ‘‘I can’t breathe!’’ as several officers take him down.
The cops did the city a favor then.
Related: Only Sadness Regarding Salisbury Slaying
Down the memory hole it went, but it reminds one that if AmeriKa's lovingly thuggish security services kill you, you deserved it.
A city medical examiner found that the 43-year-old Garner was killed by neck compression from the chokehold along with ‘‘the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.’’ Asthma, heart disease, and obesity were contributing factors.
Yeah, he kind of killed himself.
Along with creating rank-and-file discord, Garner’s death and the reaction have forced Bratton to defend his devotion to the policing tactic called broken windows — the idea that going after smaller crimes such as selling loose cigarettes or public drinking helps stop greater ones. Some lawmakers and experts say the decades-old theory unnecessarily puts nonviolent people at risk.
Proving that NY's finest serves wealth and Wall Street.
Looting bank CEOs that avoid taxes never see a chokehold, do they?
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I would get a new security detail, Mr. Mayor, one you can personally trust, one not trained in Israel.
