The guy who has built is career largely by railing against the police, and by opposing much of what they do to control crime on the grounds that it is beastly and unfair to the citizens, is having a hard time understanding why cops would turn their backs on him - as they of course did, literally - at the funerals of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
"They were disrespectful to the families involved," de Blasio said Monday. "They were disrespectful to the families who had lost their loved ones. I can't understand why anyone would do such a thing in the context like that."
De Blasio's comments marked his first expanded public reaction to the criticism he has received from union leaders and some officers, which extended to demonstrations at the funerals for the police officers who were shot and killed in Brooklyn last month.
He appeared Monday alongside Bill Bratton, the police commissioner, a news conference aimed at discussing the city's crime rate, which dropped 4.6 percent in 2014 from a year earlier. The mayor heaped praise on the department for its efforts in 2014 while simultaneously dismissing "the loudest and most disrespectful voices" he said have dominated the news cycle.
De Blasio's relationship with some members of the police force has deteriorated since Officer Wenjian Liu and Officer Rafael Ramos were gunned down while sitting in their squad car on Dec. 20. A large number of officers at the funeral for Liu turned their backs when de Blasio spoke on Sunday, mirroring the action officers also took more than a week earlier at the funeral for Office Rafael Ramos.
This occurred despite a request from Bratton that officers not repeat the "act of disrespect" that has drawn attention from the officers and onto the rift between the mayor and the police. Bratton said Monday he was disappointed with "the selfishness" of the officers who ignored his memo.
"Don't put on your uniform and go to a funeral and engage in a political action," he said.
This is really rich coming from the guy who has engaged in non-stop political action for his own benefit at the expense of the police. If you want to talk about policy, de Blasio ended "broken window" policing, which simply refers to the arrest of people for offenses like breaking windows on the grounds that a) such things are in fact illegal; and b) usually when you get those guys, you're getting the same guys who would otherwise commit the far more serious crimes. It was also de Blasio who refused to back the police in their appeal against the ban on "stop and frisk" arrests - an appeal in which they had the full support of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
And let's not forget de Blasio's tale of how he told his son, who is half black, that by virtue of his race he should be fearful of encounters with police.
When the mayor, who is ultimately the NYPD's boss, is going around saying things like that about the cops, it validates the anti-police anger that has ruled the streets in recent weeks, and contributes to the environment in which someone decides to execute two cops who are doing nothing but sitting in their squad cars.
Someone should explain to de Blasio: If you want respect, bro, give respect. If you don't think what they did was appropriate at a funeral, they might respond that the disrespect he's shown the police aren't appropriate any time for a man who wants to be, and is, mayor.
