NYPD chief calls for "a lot less rhetoric and a lot more dialogue"

Amid rage over the killings of two police officers in Brooklyn and an unarmed black man on Staten Island, the city's police commissioner has pleaded for closer attention to the roots of both police and civilian frustrations.

A day after the funeral of one of two police officers gunned down in their patrol car, the city's police commissioner called Sunday for a "lot less rhetoric and a lot more dialogue" to defuse the tension between police officers and the population they protect.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet The Press," Commissioner William Bratton said the "pent-up frustrations" that have caused people to take to the streets in recent weeks go far beyond policing policies across the nation.

"This is about the continuing poverty rates, the continuing growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor. It's still about unemployment issues. There are so many national issues that have to be addressed that it isn't just policing, as I think we all well know," he said.

Bratton said rank-and-file officers and much of America's police leadership feels under attack, including "from the federal government at the highest levels."

He urged: "See us. See the police. See why they have the anxieties and the perceptions they have."

Bratton also appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation," where he defended Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying it was wrong for hundreds of police officers to turn their backs to a video monitor outside a Queens church as de Blasio spoke at the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos.

"I certainly don't support that action," he said. "That funeral was held to honor Officer Ramos. And to bring politics, to bring issues into that event, I think, was very inappropriate."

He acknowledged, though, that the morale of officers is low and said their actions "unfortunately" reflected the feelings of some toward the mayor. Some police officers blame de Blasio for creating an atmosphere of negativity toward the New York Police Department in the city after a grand jury declined to charge an officer in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island.

The gesture at Ramos' funeral came amid contentious contract negotiations with the city. The rank-and-file police union did not claim credit for the symbolic protest, and its head, Patrick Lynch, repeatedly dodged reporters' attempts to ask about it after Ramos' funeral.

It was not clear if officers planned to turn their backs on de Blasio again at Liu's funeral. Arrangements for that service have not yet been announced.

The silent protest was a continuation of the defiance shown at a hospital after the officers' slayings Dec. 20, when Lynch and others turned their backs on de Blasio. Lynch said the mayor had "blood on his hands."

Bratton said de Blasio was "totally supportive" of officers and had contributed hundreds of millions of dollars outside the department's budget this year, much of it focused on officer safety enhancements.

After Bratton, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told the CBS program that it was wrong for officers to turn their backs on de Blasio or to try to blame him for officers' deaths.

But he also said de Blasio should apologize to the police department because he "created an impression with the police that he was on the side of the protesters."

"Say you're sorry," Giuliani urged.

De Blasio stayed out of sight Sunday, staging no public events and continuing to let Bratton hold center stage in the week since the double murder.

Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, were shot to death as they sat in their patrol car in daylight. After the officers' deaths, the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley killed himself. Police said he was troubled and had shot and wounded an ex-girlfriend in Baltimore earlier that day.

In online posts shortly before the attack, Brinsley referenced the killings of two black men by white police officers.

Bratton said the department had recently investigated more than 50 reports of threats against officers, closing out over half of them with nine arrests, and had warned officers to be alert to potential dangers. More than 20,000 officers attended Ramos' funeral, along with Vice President Joe Biden.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to NYPD chief calls for
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1228/NYPD-chief-calls-for-a-lot-less-rhetoric-and-a-lot-more-dialogue
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe