New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton admitted that the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has lost the trust of "some officers" following the murder of two NYPD cops, according to NBC’s "Today" show.
"I think he has lost it with some officers,"
Bratton said when "Today” host Matt Lauer asked him Monday if de Blasio had lost trust and confidence among NYPD officers.
A group of city cops was videotaped turning its backs on the mayor when he entered the hospital where two slain police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were taken after the weekend shooting,
according to Politico.
"I don't think it was appropriate, particularly in that setting, but it's reflective of the anger of some of them,'' Bratton said of the police protest.
Bratton then went on to defend the mayor when he was asked whether de Blasio had increased the threat facing New York cops by espousing anti-police rhetoric.
"I don't believe that at all," he said. "I've spent a lot of time with this man. I have received this year over $400 million outside of my normal budget to improve our training, to improve our facilities, to acquire technology."
Asked if de Blasio should give a speech or apologize to NYPD officers, Bratton said, "I don't know that an apology is necessary.
"One of the things, a concern at the moment, is this issue is really starting to go down partisan lines, Republican-Democrat. This is something that should be bringing us all together, not taking us apart."
Bratton was also asked when was the last time there was the similar amount of unrest in New York, "1970," he quickly replied.
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He went on, "When I first came into policing, my first 10 years were around this type of tension. Who would've ever thought, déjà vu all over again that we would be back where we were 40 some-odd years ago?
"I think this one is a little different though in the sense that [there are] social media capabilities to spread the word constantly."
Bratton admitted that the ambush killings of two officers in Brooklyn was the direct result of the protests in New York following the grand juries ruling that the officers accused of killing Michael Brown and Eric Garner should not be indicted.
"It’s quite apparent, quite obvious, that the targeting of these two police officers was a direct spinoff of this issue of these demonstrations," the police chief said.
The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, had talked about
planning to kill cops on his Instagram account in the hours leading up to the assassination of the two officers, Ramos, 40, and Liu, 32.
Brinsley shot them as they sat in their marked patrol car parked in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and then minutes later killed himself.
His Instagram post included three hashtags: ShootThePolice, RIPErivGarner [misspelling was his] and RIP MikeBrown.
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