[de Blasio] Living in a post-Bloomberg era

[CountDeMoney]

I think this goes beyond expressing disagreement with the mayor's political positions and into the territory of expressing contempt for him personally. 

And that's just the public stuff.  Imagine how they treat you on the inside if they don't like you.  Yay for cop culture.

[DGuller]

I think this goes beyond expressing disagreement with the mayor's political positions and into the territory of expressing contempt for him personally. 

Not that I necessarily agree with you, but should that be a firing offense in your opinion?

Insolence is usually a firing offense, especially when it's part of a pattern rather than a one-off meltdown episode.

[Eddie Teach]

Insolence is usually a firing offense, especially when it's part of a pattern rather than a one-off meltdown episode.

I doubt there's many cops who have had multiple opportunities to diss the mayor. Also, it doesn't seem very clear if he's their boss or not.

[Admiral Yi]

Insolence is usually a firing offense, especially when it's part of a pattern rather than a one-off meltdown episode.

Like that displayed by the teachers of Wisconsin and New Jersey?

[CountDeMoney]

Insolence is usually a firing offense, especially when it's part of a pattern rather than a one-off meltdown episode.

Like that displayed by the teachers of Wisconsin and New Jersey?

[11B4V]

I've changed my mind on this because I've heard that apparently the family did ask for no protests by police at the (first) funeral. I don't think it's some terrible threat to democracy but I think the police should've respected the family's wishes

This right here, if that's the case, is why those NYPD officers are obstinate unprofessional fucks. "They" should have respected the family's wishs. POS.

[citizen k]

Police chief's anti-racism sign lauded, criticized

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh's new police chief is being praised by the mayor but criticized by a police union president for being photographed on New Year's Eve holding a sign that says: "I resolve to challenge racism @ work."

The sign also has a Twitter hash tag that says "# end white silence." Chief Cameron McLay was photographed holding up the sign that someone had brought to the city's annual First Night celebration.

Mayor Bill Peduto said he saw the picture on social media and liked it so much he re-posted it on his own Facebook page.

"I thought, 'What a great way to begin the new year,'" said the first-year mayor, who hired McLay in September.

Peduto said he believes the chief was simply recognizing that racism exists and acknowledging there's work to be done restoring trust between the city's police and the black community.

But Fraternal Order of Police president Howard McQuillan said the sign paints city police as racists and violates a policy governing police participation in social media. McQuillan took issue with the mayor's previous comments criticizing the police and saying departmental reforms were needed, and fired off an email to the mayor, which the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.

"By Mayor Peduto labeling us 'corrupt and mediocre' and now our current Chief insinuating that we are now racist, merely by the color of our skin and the nature of our profession, I say enough is enough!" the email said.

In an email to the union, McLay apologized if he offended officers but defended his posing with the sign, saying it was a "statistical fact" that policing efforts have "a disparate impact on communities of color."

"The predominant pattern of our city's increased violence involves black victims as well as actors," wrote the police chief, who is white. "If we are to address this violence, we must work together with our communities of color."

The brouhaha over the photo comes as the city continues to grapple with incidents that have angered blacks in the city.

McLay last month put Officer David Derbish on desk duty while the U.S. Justice Department reviews the officer's shooting of a black motorist, 21-year-old Leon Ford, who was left paralyzed after a 2012 traffic stop.

Ford, who is suing the city in federal court, was acquitted in September of aggravated assault for allegedly endangering officers by driving away from the stop. Ford contends in his lawsuit that officers apparently thought he was a wanted gang member but refused to believe they had the wrong person even after he gave them various pieces of identification. Ford contends he didn't try to flee, but that his car was knocked into gear as officers tried to yank him from the vehicle.

The Allegheny County district attorney has yet to decide whether Ford will be retried on lesser remaining charges, prompting protests and causing Ford's name to be mentioned in recent marches and other demonstrations relating to the shooting of an unarmed black man by police in Ferguson, Missouri.

McQuillan told the chief in his email that the poor morale among officers needs to be addressed and is made worse by "pandering to the community at the expense of the police community."

In his email, McLay pledged to meet with commanders of the city's police patrol zones "to talk these tough issues through."

[Ed Anger]

#hashtagssolveproblems

[garbon]

#hashtagssolveproblems

Well they certainly make it easier for the media to latch onto a story.

[Ed Anger]

#bokoharamiswinning

[garbon]

#bokoharamiswinning

Well yes that is related to one hashtag that annoyed you.

[CountDeMoney]

#bokoharamiswinning

Well yes that is related to one hashtag that annoyed you.

You're not going to win with white people from Ohio. 

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/police-union-pushes-for-cops-to-be-included-in-federal-hate-crimes-law-183729328.html

Police union pushes for cop killings to be included in federal hate crimes law

In the wake of the murder of two New York City police officers and a national debate about policing, the National Fraternal Order of Police is asking for the Congressional hate crimes statute to be expanded to include crimes against police officers. The union has more than 300,000 members.

Violence against police officers that is motivated by anti-police bias should be prosecuted as a hate crime, the nation's largest police union is arguing in a letter to President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders this week.

"Right now, it's a hate crime if you attack someone solely because of the color of their skin, but it ought to be a hate crime if you attack someone solely because of the color of their uniform as well," said Jim Pasco, the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

"Enough is enough! It's time for Congress to do something to protect the men and women who protect us," Chuck Canterbury, the president of the union, said in a statement Monday. The group has long lobbied for harsher punishment for those who harm law enforcement officers.

The organization argues that "ambush attacks" — like the one in which NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were killed last month — are frequently motivated by hatred of the police. According to FBI statistics, about 21.7 percent of non-accidental law enforcement deaths since 2004 were ambush attacks.

In general, the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty has declined since the 1970s, reflecting the fall of violent crime in the United States in general. It's not clear who in Congress would take up the union's call to introduce such legislation. In the past, Democrats such as Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and Republicans such as Peter King of New York have sponsored union-backed bills.

A hate crime is defined by Congress as a "criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation." If local authorities decline to prosecute a hate crime, the federal government can take over, making hate crime offenders more likely to face prosecution.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot himself after killing the NYPD officers last month, posted anti-police messages on social media before carrying out the ambush.  His is the kind of crime the union hopes to prevent by classifying it as a hate crime.

The 1969 federal hate crimes statute has been expanded before. Sexual orientation and disability were added to the law by Congress in 2009 after lengthy lobbying efforts by LGBT groups.

According to FBI statistics, the majority of hate crimes are motivated by racial bias.

[garbon]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-writing-tickets-making-arrests-de-blasio-article-1.2066294

De Blasio speaks out about NYPD cops' back-turning at officers' funeral: 'They were disrespectful to the families'

'I think it defies a lot of what we all feel is the right and decent thing to do,' the embattled Mayor said Monday during a press conference in which he and police Commissioner Bratton touted a 4.6% drop in crime citywide in 2014. Ironically, the number of summonses issued during the week ending Sunday dropped more than 90% compared to last year in a work slowdown as part of the rank-and-file's continued protest against de Blasio over perceived anti-cop sentiments.

Mayor de Blasio gave the cops who turned their backs on him a good smack Monday.

Speaking for the first time about the public dissing he endured at the funerals of hero cops Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, de Blasio said "they were disrespectful to the families involved."

"I can't understand why anyone would do such a thing in the context like that," an angry de Blasio said. "And I think it defies a lot of what we all feel is the right and decent thing to do."

"I also think they were disrespectful to the people of this city, who in fact honor the work of the NYPD," he added.

De Blasio declined to dwell on some of the sharpest barbs that have been hurled at him, particularly from Patrolmen's Benevolent Association boss Patrick Lynch.

Lynch earlier accused the mayor of having "blood on the hands" after Ramos and Liu were murdered.

"My feelings don't matter here," de Blasio said. "What matters is the people of this city who I think expect more from all leaders than those kind of unfair and inaccurate statements."

"Obviously it was a totally inappropriate statement, totally inaccurate. It's evident. So I'll leave it at that."

De Blasio was followed by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who branded as "selfish" the hundreds of officers who turned their backs on de Blasio at the Liu funeral on Sunday.

"I share the mayor's concern about the idea of what's effectively a labor action being taken in the middle of a funeral," he said. "I think we need to focus much more on the vast majority who did what was expected rather than the few who embarrassed themselves and effectively took so much attention, so much attention."

Deeply upset, Bratton lamented that the front pages of The Daily News and other newspapers "focused on them, the selfishness of that action, the selfishness of it."

"The funeral is no place for that," he said. "Come demonstrate outside City Hall. Come demonstrate outside police headquarters, but don't put on your uniform and go to a funeral and engage in a political action."

Bratton had explicitly asked officers not to engage in a repeat of the back-turning that hundreds of cops had done earlier earlier at the Ramos funeral. But hundreds defied Bratton anyway.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama has got Bratton's back.

"The part of Commissioner Bratton's letter I think that resonates most strongly here at the White House is that those who are attending those funerals are there to pay their respect for the service and sacrifice of the two officers who were being laid to rest," Earnest said. "And certainly the President believes that their service and their sacrifice is worthy of celebration and respect and should be afforded all the outward symbols of the honor that they've been given."

...

Meanwhile all of this has made this a national story. Hopefully it is unrelated and they'll be okay.

http://news.yahoo.com/nypd--2-officers-shot-in-the-bronx-042649723.html

Two police officers were shot in the Bronx Monday night, the New York Police Department confirmed Monday night.

Details of the shooting and the condition of the two cops were not immediately known, the department said.

The incident occurred in the Fordham section of the Bronx at 184th and Teibout Avenue and police are still searching for a suspect.

Local New York City television news outlets reported the officers were rushed to St. Barnabas Medical Center and that their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

WNBC in New York reported one officer was shot in the back, but is believed to have been wearing a bullet proof vest that may have saved his life while the second officer suffered a graze wound to the elbow.

...

[garbon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/01/09/bratton-confirms-nypd-slowdown-says-officers-returning-to-normal-work/

Experiment: over

Bratton confirms NYPD slowdown, says officers returning to normal work

William J. Bratton, the New York City police commissioner, confirmed that NYPD officers have been engaging in a work slowdown, resulting in a drop in the number of arrests and summonses.

"Quite clearly, we're in a slowdown," Bratton said in an interview with NPR. "It is being corrected."

Bratton said that the department has been working to identify where and when this is taking place, but added that officers on the street are beginning to return to the work they did before the slowdown began late last month.

"I think the officers themselves have on their own been beginning to return to normal patterns of work, so we're coming out of what was a pretty widespread stoppage of certain types of activity," he said.

Police had been making far fewer arrests in recent weeks and handing out far fewer summonses for minor crimes. The drops have been substantial, with some precincts going a week without handing out a single ticket. This has occurred as the highly-public rift between New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and some police officers has only worsened. During the funerals for the two NYPD officers gunned down while sitting in their squad car last month, officers turned their backs on de Blasio while he spoke.

During a joint news conference Monday to trumpet the city's drop in crime last year, de Blasio and Bratton criticized these protests for drawing attention away from the officers being honored. At the same news conference, the two men downplayed the slowdown, saying it was too soon to draw conclusions about what was going on.

Bratton said the drop in arrests and other law enforcement activities could have been due to the holiday season, mourning for the two fallen officers or a number of other explanations. But he vowed Monday to figure out what was going on, saying that he would look "precinct by precinct, tour of duty by tour of duty, sector car by sector car, officer by officer" if necessary.

"We will deal with it very appropriately if we have to," he said.