What is this about? Superficially it seems to be that police officers feel that the mayor sided with those protesting the killing of a black man by a police officer and should have backed the police instead. Any time an officer is killed in the line of duty, the police close ranks and give him a hero's honor; nothing negative can be said.
Because the deranged man who killed these two officers himself justified it as payback for the police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and other black men -- these two completely different categories of public tragedy have become intermixed and confused.
Nevertheless, it has resulted in a general feeling that, if you continue to protest the unjustified killing of Brown and Garner and others, it's showing disloyalty and disrespect for police officers at a time when two of them have lost their lives simply because they are police officers. In fact, Mayor de Blasio called for a suspension of protests until after the funerals.
But inevitably, the mayor is in the middle and under attack from both sides. Protestors were unhappy that he asked them to suspend their public protests until after the funerals. A police union official has spoken very harshly against the mayor for remarks he made before this happened, in which he seemed to be agreeing that young black men had to be very careful not to provoke violent responses from the police.
Now we have the spectacle of uniformed police officers standing outside the church during the funeral of their comrade and turning their backs to the mayor as he delivers his eulogy. And, when de Blasio spoke at the police academy graduation, some of the graduates booed him.
De Blasio's appointed Police Commissioner William Bratton is in the middle and trying to hold them together. He said in a news interview that he "does not condone" that behavior. Personally, I think he needs to go further.
Just as our federal government puts civilians in control of our military, so do cities put our civilian elected officials in charge of the police department. Mayor de Blasio is, in effect, the commander in chief of the New York Police Department. To show such disrespect is never warranted and borders on insubordination; and that is especially true in this case, because the mayor has done everything he could and should have done to show his own grief over these losses and to support the police force at this difficult time.
No, the difference goes back way before any of this -- to a basic philosophical difference in how he thinks about policing policy and in how he views diversity, inclusiveness, authority, and cooperation. As discussed by "liamcdg" on Daily Kos, de Blasio first spoke about the non-indictment of the police officer who killed Eric Garner with a chokehold on a Staten Island street:
"Emphasizing his multiracial family and personalizing issues of social and economic inequality has allowed him to capture the support of an Obama-esque coalition of people who never had access to the halls of power. Like Obama, he projects a masculinity that is empathic and introspective -- anathema to the patriarchal attitudes that dominate hierarchal institutions like the police.
"When Mayor de Blasio first spoke about the non-indictment of the police officer who killed Eric Garner, he placed the case in a personal context:Now, President Obama had said something very similar acknowledging the increased risk that young black men face in being stopped by police; this is a national phenomenon and is backed up by statistics. But the New York police union took great offense and provided members with a form letter of protest to send to the mayor, asking that, if they were killed in the line of duty, that the mayor and his wife not attend their funerals, saying they felt he had thrown them "under the bus."
'Chirlane and I have had to talk to [their high school aged son] Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we've had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him..'"
Frankly, I think this police union and those officers who booed or turned their backs on their commander in chief are the ones who are out of order. First, like the president, the mayor is facing a reality of shootings of young, unarmed, black men that seem unnecessary, resulting only from the escalation of some minor offense into a killing. Second, the mayor has a philosophical difference with how policing should be approached -- for one thing, he got rid of the "stop and frisk" policy. And it is his job to set the tone and to hire a commissioner who can implement his policies. Of course, he cannot change an entire policing practice in a short time, but having public displays of disrespect for the commander in chief is not appropriate. I think it deserves something more than the commissioner simply "not condoning" such display while in uniform.
The Daily Kos writer goes on:
"What is needed is a cultural shift in how we understand law enforcement. Police officers must be people who understand that they are agents of the people and work for our elected officials, not against them. Mayor de Blasio has, willingly or otherwise, become an icon for these efforts. And that's why he has drawn the wrath of those invested in upholding the status quo."The deranged killer who sought his own personal vendetta against white police officers unfortunately made things much worse for the reasonable protestors and for ultimate reform of police work. His action only tilted this argument toward the police's position to the extent that it tends to stifle any serious discussion of the real issues of how black youth are treated differently by the police. I'm sure that is not what the killer intended
Ralph
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