Michael Howard Saul reports in the WSJ:
Hundreds of police officers again turned their backs as Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke Sunday at a funeral for a slain officer, demonstrating the challenge the mayor faces in healing a rift with the nation's largest police force.Commissioner Bratton asked but did not order the police officers to refrain this time, and an overwhelming majority ignored the request, as a picture in the article shows.* * *The officers' action reflected growing anger with a mayor who said he has counseled his biracial son to be careful during encounters with police, has allied himself with a police critic, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and has backed protesters rallying against grand-jury decisions not to indict officers in the 2014 deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Missouri.
"Police officers feel like they were turned upon by City Hall, and we have a right to express our opinion as well, as they did respectfully," said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the city's largest police union.
He said the back-turning was "an organic gesture that started on the streets of New York."
The mayor could have avoided the incident by simply staying away. The article does not say whether the family of Officer Liu wanted him there. That is a critical fact, in my opinion. If they did, the officers should have respected the choice. If they did not, the mayor should have stayed away.
The incident demonstrates that most of the police consider Mayor de Blasio to be the enemy. They are right to think so. If the mayor wants to change things, he can begin by disassociating himself from Al Sharpton -- the George Wallace of our time who fans the flames of racial division for his own aggrandizement.
On a related point, Saul and Prevaiz Shallwani report in another article:
The incident demonstrates that most of the police consider Mayor de Blasio to be the enemy. They are right to think so. If the mayor wants to change things, he can begin by disassociating himself from Al Sharpton -- the George Wallace of our time who fans the flames of racial division for his own aggrandizement.
On a related point, Saul and Prevaiz Shallwani report in another article:
Mayor Bill de Blasio's support for so-called broken-windows policing will face a test in his second year in office as he tries to improve relations with police unions while maintaining support from a liberal base demanding change.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Mr. de Blasio told police union officials last week that he had no plans to change course on broken windows, a philosophy of policing in which low-level offenses are aggressively pursued in hopes of deterring more significant ones.But on Dec. 19, one day before two officers were slain, the mayor signaled he was open to changes.
"Of course it grows with the times, of course it changes with the times," said Mr. de Blasio, speaking of broken windows.
* * *
Broken windows isn't a major bone of contention between the mayor and the police unions, who have faulted the mayor for creating an anti-police climate in the city ahead of the Dec. 20 killings of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Officer Liu was buried on Sunday.
But scaling back or abandoning broken windows' use in New York is a demand of two key union foes: the Rev. Al Sharpton and protesters.
See also my previous post on broken windows.
NYPD doesn't trust or respect de Blasio. And for good reason.
That distrust and disrespect started during de Blasio's campaign for mayor when he criticized the NYPD for utilizing the very effective, proactive, crime-fighting tool of Stop & Frisk, even though it was being exercised in a constitutional manner according to the dictates of Terry.
de Blasio's race-baiting comments has only widened his credibility gap with the NYPD, to the extent that he might as well be Sharpton himself.
When he ran for mayor, I predicted that, if elected, de Blasio would turn back the clock 50 years against the significant progress that NYC (under its last two mayors) has made against crime.
Sadly,for the ~8 million residents of the Big Apple Big Bird de Blasio is proving me right.