NYPD Takes a Page from the Westboro Baptist Church
by lizard
What the hell does the NYPD expect to accomplish by taking a page from the Westboro Baptist Church and using the funeral of officer Ramos to further escalate tensions in their political war against the Mayor’s office? Chief Bratton is trying to do some damage control, but it’s yet to be seen if his words will have any effect. At least he’s trying:
De Blasio has faced expressions of open hostility from New York’s police unions since two officers were killed last weekend. On Saturday a cordon of officers turned their back on the mayor’s image as it was being screened outside Christ Tabernacle church in Queens, where de Blasio was addressing the funeral of one of the murdered officers , Rafael Ramos.
Bratton condemned the silent protest of the police officers. “I certainly don’t support that action,” he said. “That funeral was held to honor officer Ramos, and to bring politics into that event was very inappropriate.”
Today Democracy Now featured a NYPD officer, Adhyl Polanco, speaking out about what’s going on in New York City. Here is a portion of the interview:
AMY GOODMAN: Your reaction to your fellow officers turning their back on Mayor de Blasio, not in the church, but outside, because there were so many, they couldn’t all fit in the church?
ADHYL POLANCO: Absolutely wrong, absolutely wrong. Mayor de Blasio came to the police department, that had a lot of issues with before he got to this police department. Mayor de Blasio came with the attitude that “I can fix this police department.” But this police department has a culture that is going to make whoever tried to change that culture and life impossible, including the mayor. It’s absolutely wrong to turn their back on the mayor. It absolutely don’t show—this is not what we’re made of. This is—I was not taught—you know, this does not represent the police department. This does not represent how, when a family calls for peace and unity, you’re going to have a hundred officers doing the absolute opposite.
AMY GOODMAN: Do other officers feel as you do?
ADHYL POLANCO: There’s many. There’s many officers that feel like I do.
It takes true courage for someone in Officer Polanco’s position to come forward. Within the 7th largest army in the world, I hope there are more people like Officer Polanco.
It’s too bad the insurrectionary faction of the NYPD don’t understand their actions will inevitably make their job more dangerous. Or maybe they don’t care. Maybe another tragedy is something this faction knows they can exploit to—to what? Enact regime change in NYC?
Whatever the motivation, the effect will be further escalation.
December 29, 2014 at 8:18 pm
Anyone with half a brain can see the exact resemblance of the Westboro protests and the silent distain of the officers.
December 30, 2014 at 12:12 am
Ha ha, Swede thinks he has half a brain. That’s classic
December 29, 2014 at 11:47 pm
What is their motivation you ask? I offered this before, but apparently you didn’t read it. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/bill-de-blasio-113755.html
Perhaps Liz that’s something you and the mayor have in common with your “Whatever their motivation…”
December 30, 2014 at 7:23 am
perhaps, Craig, you can read the beginning of the post again. I asked what these cops hope to accomplish by exploiting the funeral of their fellow officer. I get that they’re upset with the Mayor and with protesters who for some weird reason don’t believe police should be able to kill people with total impunity. so what do these insurrectionist cops hope to accomplish? De Blasio got elected, which means the majority of voters want him as their Mayor. the NYPD, if they were a professional department of adults, would see that their methods of expressing their anger is only going to exacerbate the situation. are they trying to make the situation so bad that De Blasio resigns. that’s my guess.
anyways, your support of their tactics is duly noted, Craig.
December 30, 2014 at 7:44 am
“Complicating the debate is the fact that there is no reliable national data on how many people are shot by police officers each year. Federal officials allow the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies to self-report officer shootings. That figure, Lowery reported, hovers around 400 “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement each year.
Several independent trackers, primarily journalists and academics who study criminal justice, insist the accurate number of people shot and killed by police officers each year is consistently upwards of 1,000 each year, Lowery reported.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/11/24/fbi-reports-27-cops-were-killed-last-year-but-how-many-civilians-were-killed-by-officers/
Goodman, like most “journalists” took her eye off the ball with purpose. Another lesson in media’s preemptive role in the daily activity of national brainwashing.
Everyone has a right to protest. Goodman and the vast majority of her colleagues have a job to do and a target audience to distract. Apparently, that can’t be done by covering both (ordinary citizen and police) protests?
December 30, 2014 at 10:03 am
In today’s AlterNet, there’s a story by Max Blumenthal explaining the relationship between the NYPD and Republican groups intent on embarrassing the mayor and maybe driving him from office. The cop protests are orchestrated not spontaneous.
I haven’t figured out how to post a link here.
December 30, 2014 at 10:21 am
here’s a link to the piece you reference.