Tensions remain between the Mayor and the Police of New York, as law enforcement officers once again turn their backs on Mayor De Blasio, this time at the funeral of fallen NYPD Officer, Wenjian Liu.
You will recall that NYPD turned their backs on the Mayor out of protest over his comments about the nature of police brutality in New York against young, black, men. The Chief of Police requested that the officers not continue this type of protest in advance of the eulogy for the second of two officers executed by a lunatic with a gun who proclaimed his actions were in protest to the death of Eric Gardner.
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My thoughts on this issue are simple: Bill De Blasio was an ass, the NYPD are being asses, and that lunatic with a gun is the biggest ass of them all. I’ll break it down simply.
First, Bill De Blasio should have recognized that it is damn-near impossible to approach this sensitive issue with the kid gloves it needs by being anecdotal about his own son. The prudent thing to do is to hear the concerns of the community and make appropriate changes to police protocol as opposed to giving credence to the racial issue without rebut. There is certainly a racial element that needs to be addressed in the NYPD, but it does not need to be addressed as a holistic condemnation of the entire police force as being racist.
These NYPD officers are being asses because they refuse to recognize that there are indeed bad apples in their institution that target minorities for petty crimes, and exceed the scope of what the nation feels is reasonable with everything from stop and frisk to the choke-hold death of Eric Gardner. These bad apples need be weeded out in order to justify the “not all cops are bad cops” mantra that seems to be the calling card for conservatives on the issue. It is true that all cops are not bad cops, but it is also true that there are some bad cops, and it only makes sense to take De Blasio’s criticisms of the law enforcement arm of the government as being one of weeding out the bad apples, and not to paint with a broad brush the entire NYPD as being racist.
Finally, that lunatic with a gun who shot his girlfriend in Massachusetts, boarded a train to NYPD, and posted on instagram about getting justice against cops for the death of Eric Gardner: before you killed yourself, and even in your death, you are a total ass for turning respectful criticism of the control law enforcement has over everyday citizens’ lives into a violent, barbaric loss of life. Nothing was ever gained by you behaving that way — no point was proven. Instead, all that was done was the fueling of anger and fear in a situation where anger and fear are not helpful, but are only harmful to the dialogue. You hurt a good cause, and turned it into the war it was never supposed to be.