Police-mayor tensions mount over chokehold death

[alp227]

Source: AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Police have become increasingly at odds with Mayor Bill de Blasio over 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."

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 the police commissioner as he 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.

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."

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/police-mayor-tensions-mount-over-chokehold-death

[Lint Head]

1. Screw the "morale" of the police! The "morals" of the police is much more important.

Having the police happily beating and choking people without worrying about being held accountable is ridiculous. Training the police on civil liberties and Constitutional rights is more important than letting them run ruff shad over the populace.

[6000eliot]

2. The criticism from Giuliani, AKA "The King of the Chokeholds," is particularly rich.

[Ken Burch]

4. Giuliani sounds like the antisemitic French reactionaries in the early 20th Century

who argued that, even though it had become clear that Col. Dreyfuss was innocent of the charges made against him, and that those charges were only made because Dreyfuss was Jewish, Dreyfuss' could NOT be freed because admitting he was innocent would be an affront to "the dignity of the Army".

[6000eliot]

7. Excellent historical parallel! +1000!

[geomon666]

3. Pro Cop?

How about Pro Justice? Dare I say, Pro Life? Oooh I have a good one, Pro Please Don't Choke My Ass To Death.

We all know about the Blue Wall and how all of you fucking pigs like to look out for each other but your boy with the green jersey, who killed a man in cold blood, he's going down. Whether you fucking clowns do it yourselves or the feds have to step in and do it for you, he's going down.

[Ken Burch]

5. I've yet to hear an explanation

of why, in a city in which muggings, rapes, and murders are still a huge issue, the cops would spend all that time hassling a guy for selling "loose cigarettes".

Why harass anybody over THAT, let alone kill anybody over it?

[Chakab]

6. It's called the "broken windows" strategy. The idea is that the overall quality of life in the city

is improved by issuing a large number of summons for trivial violations of the law.

There's also the policy of statistics based policing. These cops have quotas, and they go after easy targets like Eric Garner on a regular basis to fill them. Garner's death resulted from poor police training. Cops these days look for the slightest hint of resistance or disobedience to take people down when they should be trained to deescalate tense situations. Garner made the mistake of expressing his frustration about being hassled on a daily basis.

The net result of this nonsense is that poor people in minority communities who aren't actually threats to society have to deal with a river of shit day in and day out.

Matt Taibbi does a good job of breaking down this phenomenon in his new book. The bus driver story, which starts at 6:00 in, is a real doozy.

[LiberalElite]

13. NYPD Stats Here FYI

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cscity.pdf

[safeinOhio]

8. It's the video

stupid.

[Uben]

9. Taking sides?

WTF? I thought the police were on our side. Are they saying they are not? Cuz if they're not, I want every goddamned one of them disarmed and fired immediately for dereliction of duty! The police cannot have it both ways, they're either on our side or they are removed from society.

[mountain grammy]

12. Exactly!

[truth2power]

15. Jumped out at me, too. Taking sides??? WTF!! A police officer murders someone

and it's not PC to "take sides"?

What's the status on that cop? Has he been fired? If not, why not?

[jwirr]

10. It is high time someone take a stand against the kind of police brutality that we have been seeing

in this country. The Mayor is their boss - poor babies can't stand being expected to be good policemen. We have seen this kind of brutality before during the civil rights movement. NYC has a rep for this and the mayor was elected because he stood up against it. Doesn't surprise me the rethug mayors are standing against them. As long as they do not use a chokehold on the 1% rethugs do not care.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. The mayor is not beholden to the police chief.

If Bratton can't control his officers he should pound sand, period.

And any officer who doesn't like it knows where to file his resignation papers, too.

Perhaps this Mayor can put the people of the City above the police force that's supposed to protect them, not kill them in the streets over desk appearance ticket level offenses.

[appal_jack]

14. Wait, the head of the PBA is named "Lynch"??!?!?!?

Wait, the head of the PBA is named "Lynch"??!?!?!?

Satire writes itself.

Meanwhile his colleague at the PBA hints at a 'work slowdown'... what are they going to do, only chokehold five citizens per day instead of fifteen?

Corrupt NYC cops have been given absolute carte blanche since the first Giuliani election. Their arrogant sense of entitlement is reprehensible. They need to reminded that they exist to serve and protect an elected government (and its citizens), and not the other way around.

-app

[Faux pas]

16. What happened was wrong

period.

[freebrew]

17. Saturday in St. Louis...

a 'cop' shot an unarmed kid that had his hands up in surrender position.

All I know, from the news, is that 2 kids walking down the street were hassled by cops and one ended up dead.

Execution style.

Same day, my house was 'searched' during a manhunt. I wasn't home.

All this shit is getting out of hand.

[blackspade]

18. boo fucking whoo.

The union officials responses underscore the problems with these 'benevolent associations.'

Instead of calling out wrong doing, they circle the wagons around murderers with badges.