The NYPD's embarrassing protests at two recent police funerals were "unacceptable" to the vast majority of New Yorkers, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Nearly 70 percent of New Yorkers disapproved of cops turning their backs to Mayor de Blasio, and 77 percent said police union leader Patrick Lynch's "blood on the hands" comments about de Blasio were "too extreme."
It turns out the seething, misplaced rage of the NYPD that has been brewing since the murder of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu last month isn't directed solely at the citizens of New York City and Mayor Bill de Blasio. Today at a Patrolmen's Benevolent Association meeting in Queens led by union president and spoiled ham sandwich Patrick Lynch, members of New York's finest turned on each other, shouting and shoving each other over whether or not the department should be waiting around for an apology from de Blasio.
Top NYPD officials are demanding increased summons activity after a weeks-long slowdown, the New York Post reports. Borough commanders have reportedly mandated that precincts deliver "activity sheets" detailing the number of arrests and summons per shift. Officers have reportedly also been threatened with a loss of vacation time.
New York City courts have been quiet in the two and a half weeks since the NYPD essentially stopped arresting people. The New York Times reports that arraignments have dropped 60 and 91 percent for misdemeanor offenses and low-level violations like disorderly conduct over the past two and a half weeks compared with the same period last year. Overall, arraignments in December were down 34 percent compared to last year.
In the weeks since Officer Daniel Pantaleo escaped indictment for killing Eric Garner, the NYPD and organizations that support it have targeted Bill de Blasio with airborne banners, mass back-turnings, and memes about his wife's choice of legwear. It's a horrible display of police fearmongering and entitlement—but it all pales in comparison to "Welcome to Fear City," a pamphlet law enforcement unions published four decades ago to attack the mayor they hated.
For the bulk of his tenure, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has been dogged by rumors that he and his wife consume marijuana with some frequency. Yesterday, at a press conference in Brooklyn, he told a Daily Caller reporter that “I haven’t smoked marijuana since I was at NYU” and denied he ever smoked weed at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor. We’ve asked about these rumors ourselves. It’s worth highlighting, however, who exactly is spreading them: The mayor’s security detail and their colleagues in the New York City Police Department.
Last month, in a dispatch for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote, "The police are representatives of a state that derives its powers from the people." The gravity of Coates's words are not lost on me, and I have considered the sentence's trueness many times in the preceding weeks. "We, the people," our founding fathers inscribed in the preamble to the Constitution. But our present condition—one that finds the NYPD constantly at odds with the community it is designed to protect—is a reality our founding fathers perhaps had not predicted: a citizenry devoid of power, and a petty police force with no sense of moral obligation to the communities it serves. The deaths of Eric Garner and Akai Gurley—and all the lives the NYPD has unfairly taken, and will likely take again—are what happens when the people have no power. I am troubled.
Two NYPD officers were shot responding to a robbery near Fordham University in the Bronx late Monday night. The suspected shooter and an accomplice are reportedly at large.
The subway conductor allegedly attacked by NYPD officer Mirjan Lolja on a Bronx subway platform says the cop tried to escape by train after throwing her to the ground and choking her. The woman anonymously told the New York Daily News, "I believe the only thing that saved me was the train coming into the station."
Police are trying to find the son of a Manhattan hedge fund manager who allegedly shot his father to death inside a multimillion-dollar Sutton Place apartment Sunday.
On Friday, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton appealed to the "tradition, honor, and decency" of his force, asking them to refrain from using the funeral of murdered officer Wenjian Liu as a venue for protest. On Sunday, thousands of cops rejected that request, turning their backs to Mayor Bill de Blasio as he spoke at the service.
According to a report from DNAinfo's Murray Weiss, the NYPD is investigating social media death threats against cops from alleged gang members who are apparently promising to turn tonight's New Year's Eve celebrations into "Kill a Pig Night." But who are these violent tweeters? Do they exist at all?
According to reports in the New York Post and New York Daily News, the NYPD has basically stopped doing its job since the murder of two officers earlier this month. Arrests, the Post reports, were down 66% in the week following the deaths of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, compared to the same period in 2013.
As the outrage winds have swirled around the NYPD's decision to turn their backs to Bill De Blasio at the funeral of murdered officer Rafael Ramos, some in the police force's corner have been compelled to bend in the other direction. This weekend, both NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton and semi-professional police state spokesperson Rudy Giulinai distanced themselves from the police protest, with Bratton calling the demonstration "inappropriate." They are right, but for the wrong reasons.
