A comment I posted to the NY Times reportage of the two murdered officers

[Wella]

48. The problems with deBlasio and NYPD predate this shooting and are more complicated

than your comment:

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio names Bill Bratton as New York police chief
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/bill-bratton-appointed-nyc-police-commissioner

NYC’s first lady on Bratton: ‘I told you we can’t trust him!’
http://nypost.com/2014/11/02/citys-first-lady-not-happy-with-bill-bratton/

Hell hath no fury like a first lady whose passed-over pick for police commissioner — the outgoing Chief of Department Philip Banks III — is further scorned.

“I told you we can’t trust him!” a furious Chirlane McCray railed at her husband, Mayor de Blasio, after learning that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton had stood up to Banks during a power struggle Friday that ended with the chief’s resignation, sources told The Post.

By “him” McCray meant Bratton, whom she never wanted to see at the commissioner’s desk.

“She is friendly with Banks, and he was her choice” for commissioner, a source said.

“She was very upset when he resigned,” the source said of ­McCray, who has sat in on NYPD CompStat meetings, and whom de Blasio has called his most trusted adviser.

By Friday afternoon, de Blasio had summoned Bratton to City Hall, blasting him face to face for not catering to Banks, who had resigned rather than take a promotion to No. 2 at the NYPD — a position Banks felt was powerless.

What’s going on inside the NYPD?
http://nypost.com/2014/11/02/whats-going-on-inside-the-nypd/

Last Tuesday, Police Commissioner William Bratton announced that with the departure of First Deputy Commissioner Rafael Pineiro, he was promoting Chief of Department Philip Banks to take over the post.

On Friday, before Banks could even be sworn in, he announced he wasn’t taking the job and resigned from the police department. Supposedly, Bratton had reneged on a promise to give him real authority as first deputy.

Bill de Blasio details talk with biracial son about interacting with police
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/de-blasio-details-talk-son-dealing-cops-article-1.2036870

Police fury at mayor’s racial smear
http://nypost.com/2014/12/04/police-union-prez-rips-de-blasio-over-eric-garner/

The NYPD’s rank and file reacted with fury Thursday at being “thrown under the bus” by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said he and First Lady Chirlane McCray had trained their mixed-race son, Dante, about the “dangers” posed by cops.

Pat Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, blasted de Blasio for his inflammatory remarks, which followed Wednesday’s decision by a Staten Island grand jury not to indict cop Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

“What police officers felt yesterday after that press conference was that they were thrown under the bus,” Lynch said.

De Blasio had called the Garner case “profoundly personal for me,” saying that because of “the dangers [Dante] may face, we’ve had to literally train him . . . in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.”

The comments angered cops, with one saying, “Did he tell his son to be wary of his police bodyguards, that he should be afraid of them as they pick him up at school and drive him where he needs to go?”

Lynch railed that de Blasio effectively told New Yorkers to teach their kids “that they should be afraid of New York City police officers.”

“That’s not true!” Lynch shouted. “Our city is safe because of police officers. All of our sons and daughters walk the streets in safety because of police officers. They should be afraid of the criminals. That’s what we should be teaching.”

Rebels without a case
http://nypost.com/2014/12/05/rebels-without-a-case/

This week Mayor de Blasio cited the “will of the people” as grounds for imposing reforms aimed at making what he basically says is a racist NYPD care about black lives.

There's a lot more, but you get the picture. Your well-meant comment is actually demonstrating ignorance of the longstanding battle between Bratton/NYPD and the mayor. DeBlasio appointed Bratton, but there seems to have been mistrust since the beginning, and DeBlasio's wife has played a significant role. (Even if her opinions were correct, no one likes the unelected wife of a politician to involve herself so closely in decision-making. That's why Michelle Obama is doing diet and food and Laura Bush focused on literacy.)

DeBlasio makes it worse by implying that the NYPD officers who are protecting his son 24/7 are actually racist and might harm him. DeBlasio is also throwing around racism of the NYPD in speeches about the recent court decisions. You can see how a cop on the street might get the idea that DeBlasio was deliberately flaming racial tensions and trying to get them killed. This is certainly not true--DeBlasio is only talking to the base and trying to show his sympathy--but the cops feel that his remarks about race justify attacks on them by protestors and others.

It's a complicated situation requiring a complicated diplomatic solution, where De Blasio and Bratton sit down and iron things out. It's not a simple one-off comment in a newspaper.