New York City Reaping The Bitter Fruits Of Giuliani’s Divisive Politics

We have seen nothing but police bashing from some of the highest offices in the land.

Howard Safir
Howard Safir

So said Howard Safir for­mer Fire Commissioner and police com­mis­sion­er of the City of New York . Safir was appoint­ed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on January 1, 1994 and served in that posi­tion until he was appoint­ed 39th Police Commissioner of the City of New York by Giuliani on April 15, 1996. He served as Police Commissioner until his res­ig­na­tion on August 18, 2000.

Safir did not stop there he went on to say ” Police lives mat­ter. Let’s demon­strate it nationally.
 Michael Brown and Eric Garner died resist­ing arrest. Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu died doing their job. It is a very impor­tant dis­tinc­tion. Michael Brown and Eric Garner were com­mit­ting crimes. Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were pro­tect­ing all the cit­i­zens of New York City.
Well there you have it a direct assault on the griev­ing fam­i­lies of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Safir did not both­er to include the lit­tle annoy­ing fact that Eric Garner was mur­dered for no rea­son! If you did not com­mit a crime why would you take kind­ly to being arrested?Safir did not both­er to men­tion 12 year-old Tamir Rice who was gunned down in Cleveland Ohio by cops who drove up and just shot him, albeit he was hold­ing a toy gun. There was no men­tion of any of the oth­er sense­less killings , like that of John Crawford gunned down in a Beaver Creek Ohio Walmart , because he picked up a toy gun he intend­ed to purchase.
Safir did not care about Kajeime Powell a black man of unsound mind who was lit­er­al­ly exe­cut­ed by St Louis Police just a stones throw from where Michael Brown was exe­cut­ed in Ferguson Missouri. 

Nothing about  Akai Gurley’s killed as he exit­ed his girl­friend’s apart­ment. Was he deserv­ing of death? Did he resist arrest or did his sense­less killing not fit Safir’s narrative?

How about Michael Bell who was killed as he left his bach­e­lor’s par­ty on the day he was to be mar­ried? How about Anthony Baez, or  Amadou Diallo?
Howard Safir could not both­er to care about the inno­cent loss of black lives, too many to men­tion but like all the oth­er ver­min he crawled out to demo­nize and crit­i­cize the Mayor Attorney General, Reverend Al Sharpton and President Obama. 
No one is sur­prised about Howard Safir’s intem­per­ate self-serv­ing out­burst, after all he was hired by Giuliani, the big­ot­ed lit­tle El Duce who ruled New York City for 8 years. Combined Safir, his for­mer boss and the thugs who assault and kill peo­ple under the guise of good polic­ing are lit­er­al­ly the same class­less , uncouth and in some cas­es racists thugs who caused this whole fiasco. 
Actions have con­se­quences, fix police abuse and this prob­lem goes away. Continue in stub­born tone deaf­ness and the anger and vio­lence is bound to con­tin­ue. The police sim­ply can­not con­tin­ue to kill and cit­i­zens have no recourse in the courts.
That is where Howard Safir, Rudolph and oth­ers who place the NYPD above law abid­ing cit­i­zens and the laws should focus their ener­gies. But Safir the Giuliani pro­tégé was­n’t done, he was just get­ting start­ed , blam­ing US Attorney General Eric Holder ‚the Reverend Al Sharpton and even President Obama for stir­ring up anti-police resentment.

Racialist , race baiter Rudolph Giuliani
Racialist , race baiter Rudolph Giuliani



No one is stir­ring up police resent­ment, except the police. When cops act out­side the laws cit­i­zens are not going to roll over and die. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that these peo­ple who held high office could demon­stra­bly be so stu­pid. Recent events which have gar­nered nation­al and world-wide atten­tion should be enough to force these char­la­tans to use what­ev­er influ­ence they have to get police to respect human rights and human dignity.
Instead they use it to fur­ther solid­i­fy and cement what the black com­mu­ni­ty has always felt, that they do not care about their com­mu­ni­ty or their lives. No one in the black com­mu­ni­ty expect­ed any­thing bet­ter from the likes of Rudolph Giuliani or Howard Safir.

Not to be out­done the entourage of Republican hypocrisy was not con­fined to Safir, Former Republican Governor George Pataki tweet­ed Sickened by these bar­bar­ic acts, which sad­ly are a pre­dictable out­come of divi­sive anti-cop rhetoric of & . .
No one heard a word of con­dem­na­tion for the killing of Eric Garner from twist­ed mouth George Pataki..
El Deuce Giuliani, who was nev­er at a loss as to how to fix the black com­mu­ni­ty, when he is not advo­cat­ing their killing said quote, ”  It is the right time to talk about [de Blasio’s] poli­cies. His poli­cies of allow­ing protests to get out of con­trol, and of his not empha­siz­ing enough the impor­tance of father­hood, the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion, the impor­tance of an alter­na­tive to a pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem that is fail­ing the black children”.

Recently released federal felon Bernard Kerik
Recently released fed­er­al felon Bernard Kerik

The most out­ra­geous of all though, are the com­ments of Federal Felon and recent­ly released pris­on­er Bernard Kerik . Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik tore into Mayor Bill de Blasio over his han­dling of the Eric Garner con­tro­ver­sy, claim­ing that he has sided with Rev. Al Sharpton against the police force and his own police com­mis­sion­er, Bill Bratton. Kerik, who – like Mr. Bratton – served as head of the NYPD under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, claimed that Mr. de Blasio has let Mr. Sharpton walk all over New York’s Finest fol­low­ing Mr. Garner’s fatal encounter with cops last month. “These men and women go out every day and put their lives on the line for the peo­ple of this city,” Mr. Kerik told lis­ten­ers of the Geraldo Rivera radio pro­gram. “They’re get­ting cru­ci­fied here and thrown under the bus by the de Blasio Administration for one instance.” Mr. Kerik, once her­ald­ed as “America’s Cop” after his ser­vice dur­ing the September 11 attacks, had a pre­cip­i­tous fall from grace. He was recent­ly released from prison after serv­ing three years for tax fraud and lying to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment when he was being con­sid­ered for the job of Director of Homeland Security.As report­ed by the new york observer.

Of all the nerve, this crim­i­nal has the nerve to open his mouth, as far as Giuliani, Safir and oth­ers who sup­port them are con­cerned, crim­i­nals like Kerik are of no liv­ing worth. They nev­er fail to trot out the record of peo­ple NYPD mur­der, as if hav­ing a record means that a per­son is prime can­di­date for sum­ma­ry police execution.
The sin­gle thread which ties Safir, Kerik, Pataki, and the destruc­tive, dis­re­spect­ful atti­tude of some with­in the NYPD like Lynch and oth­ers is Rudolph Giuliani, the race-baiter whose divi­sive poli­cies divid­ed the city along racial lines to fur­ther his polit­i­cal ambitions.

Garish And Classless

Mayor deBlasio do not be intimidated as you do the work you were elected to do, Police officers are necessary for the job they do , they are not above the laws. They should and must respect the laws like everyone else. We are with you Mayor.
Mayor deBlasio
do not be intim­i­dat­ed as you do the work you were elect­ed to do, Police offi­cers are nec­es­sary for the job they do , they are not above the laws. They should and must respect the laws like every­one else.
We are with you Mayor.

Members of the NYPD who turned their backs on may­or deBlasio did not do them­selves their fam­i­lies nor the city any jus­tice today . The Mayor has a job to do, and he is doing it. The NYPD’s tone deaf­ness to the con­cerns and the cries of cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties is indica­tive of their lack of respect for some cit­i­zens of the city of New York.”

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Again they have show a total lack of class and respect by turn­ing their backs on the Chief Executive Officer of 8.5 mil­lion peo­ple. Members of the NYPD seem to believe that oth­ers should bow to them. By their own actions they con­tin­ue to do irrepara­ble harm to the depart­ment and to them­selves by their class-less thug­gish and gar­ish dis­play in both words and deeds.

Events like these which ought to elic­it empa­thy and sup­port from cit­i­zens are wast­ed as this Agency dis­plays ten­den­cies which have some cit­i­zens up in arms in the first place.Their actions fur­ther cements the views that the Agency is a Gang of crim­i­nals who believe they are above the laws or a law onto themselves .
Clearly there are sys­tem­at­ic prob­lems with­ing this police depart­ment that needs seri­ous solutions.
The Giuliani and Bloomberg years has cre­at­ed a Force which is alien to the needs of most New Yorkers.
Clearly being the biggest does not mean the best. 
This is a dis­gust­ing tasteless,disrespectful ‚dispi­ca­ble and taste­less act.

#THUGS

Two Cops Murdered In Cowardly Attack

Two NYPD cops ambushed and mur­dered in brazen cow­ard­ly attack as they sat in their patrol car.

Two NYPD police offi­cers were bru­tal­ly mur­dered in Brooklyn as they sat in their patrol car .
More details to come.
Our hearts and prayers to the fam­i­lies of both officers.

Officer
Officer Wenjian Liu

Officer Rafael Ramos
Officer Rafael Ramos

Body-blow Cop Suspended :report

Officer John McDevitt — an anti-crime cop from the 7th Precinct rained body-blows on the subject who was already under the control of three other cops
Officer John McDevitt — an anti-crime cop from the 7th Precinct rained body-blows on the sub­ject who was already under the con­trol of three oth­er cops

A NYPD tough-guy street cop wear­ing cam­ou­flage jack­et and base­ball cap with peak turned back­wards, is now cool­ing his heels on sus­pen­sion for rain­ing blows on an under­age boy who was ini­tial­ly accused of assault­ing someone.
The charges against the youth were report­ed­ly lat­er dropped.
John McDevitt , an anti-crime cop from the 7th Precinct was iden­ti­fied as the accused cop who ran in and deliv­ered sev­er­al body-shots to the young man’s mid­sec­tion, while three oth­er cops had him pressed against a car and were in the process of plac­ing cuffs on him.

Interestingly there was a black female cop who stood around as the kid was pound­ed by the cop and did noth­ing. That takes care of the sug­ges­tions racial diver­si­ty with­ing police depart­ments are some sort of panacea for police abuse. From what we have seen in the Eric Garner case and oth­ers, cops of all races appear to be equal oppor­tu­ni­ty abusers.

In this case the black female cop seemed more con­cerned with a lady who iden­ti­fied her­self as a lawyer as she lament­ed that they would actu­al­ly be com­mit­ting the assault in light of recent occurrences.

This is yet anoth­er exam­ple of what black and brown New Yorkers have been com­plain­ing of for years. This is not about aggres­sive polic­ing which is clear­ly need­ed to make sure that crime stats trend down and remain down.

This nlack female cop was more concerned with observers who voiced their disapproval at what was occurring than stopping the assault by her colleague
This black female cop was more con­cerned with observers who voiced their dis­ap­proval at what was occur­ring than stop­ping the assault by her colleague

From Social media com­ments of some igno­rant observers, there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty of aggres­sive­ly going after crim­i­nals and respect­ing the rights of citizens.

Of course those opin­ions are not based on real­i­ty , but on utter igno­rance and racial hatred.
Police offi­cers can aggres­sive­ly go after crim­i­nals and at the same time refrain from tram­pling on the rights of cit­i­zens. There is a dif­fer­ence between aggres­sive­ly going after crim­i­nals and being undu­ly aggres­sive with citizens.
One thing this recent upsurge of police abuse, excess and unlaw­ful killings revealed, is the deep ugly under-bel­ly of racism in America. Be it Police or any oth­er mat­ter, the con­ver­sa­tion defaults to race. That is where the igno­rance and utter idio­cy of those who blind­ly sup­port cops or what­ev­er cause they cham­pi­on from the right comes out. No amount of con­vinc­ing will change the views of those who hold racist views, those who hate, into real­iz­ing racism is igno­rance per­son­i­fied. After all igno­rance is all they have to hold onto.
New York cops are not with­out sup­port­ers who believe it is per­fect­ly good prac­tice to abuse, injury and kill peo­ple of col­or. We can­not change the mind of the igno­rant who feel that way. New Yorkers can make cops under­stand we love them , we respect them but we will under no cir­cum­stances allow them to abuse and kill with­out consequence.

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Once again NYPD’s finest abuse cit­i­zens then gripe and com­plain about not get­ting respect.
You do not get respect when your demeanor is one of a hooli­gan and a com­mon thug.
Differentiate your­self from hooli­gans thugs and gang­sters and peo­ple will respect your authority.
Nowhere in his­to­ry has those who seek to use brute force over per­sua­sion ever work in the inter­est of the practitioner.
Force begets force , vio­lence begets vio­lence, use the author­i­ty of your badge and peo­ple will respect you.

Cop Killed For Being A Cop

Constable Preddie
Constable Preddie

She walked in this morn­ing and greet­ed me as she always did when she comes in to trans­act busi­ness. I real­ized some­thing was wrong as soon as I looked up to return her greet­ing. She told me her cousin was shot and killed in Jamaica last night. Killing is nor­mal now more-so in some places than oth­ers. In Jamaica it’s more-so.

My heart went out to her, she was very much there for me and my fam­i­ly in April when we lost our beloved son Kodi.
I felt a sense of empa­thy for her loss. I do so now even more than I did before. Death of a loved one does that to you.
Then she tells me her cousin was a police offi­cer and my heart dropped. Not because police offi­cers lives are worth more than that of any­one else, but because they stand between those who would do us harm and ourselves.

Jamaican Police say Constable Preddie who was off duty and unarmed was relax­ing with friends at a bar in the remote com­mu­ni­ty of Farm in the Asia police divi­sion of south­ern Manchester when sev­er­al men armed with guns entered the premis­es. The crim­i­nals pro­ceed­ed to rob patrons and in the process of going through their pock­ets dis­cov­ered Preddie’s police iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. One of the gun­men prompt­ly shot him in the head. He report­ed­ly died on the spot. Preddie was mar­ried with two chil­dren aged eight years and 18 months.

The death of this offi­cer sends a chill­ing mes­sage to law abid­ing cit­i­zens, “we will kill any­thing and any­one who stand in our way”. The fact that con­sta­ble Preddie was unarmed is some­what trou­bling. Why would a police offi­cer not have a ser­vice weapon in this day and age is beyond me?
Did Preddie have access to a weapon but naïve­ly allowed him­self to be lulled into a false sense of security?
Did the depart­ment take their weapon after they fin­ished using him dur­ing his tour of duty?
Those are per­ti­nent ques­tions which begs swift answers.
Jamaican author­i­ties and civ­il soci­ety, places extra­or­di­nary stock on the lives of crim­i­nals and con­vict­ed felons, not on the lives and inter­est of police offi­cers. My heart goes out to his fam­i­ly ‚to my friend Trish and more than any­one else, his wife and two lit­tle kids.
May God give you com­fort and peace.
To the scum who took his life, may you rest easy in the knowl­edge you do not have some­one like me on your trail for this killing .
Demonizing police offi­cers gives pow­er to garbage like these scum, that is the Jamaican way.
I ask that all offi­cers take this death per­son­al­ly, go get these pieces of garbage.Whether you bring them to jus­tice or you bring jus­tice to them is all the same to me.

Black North Carolina Hanging Victim’s White Girlfriend, 32, Reveals Neighbors Had Hassled Them Over Interracial Romance

Lennon Lacy was found dead on Aug,. 29.
Lennon Lacy was found dead on Aug,. 29.
Michelle Brimhall believes that 17-year-old Lennon Lacy ‘was murdered’ and claims that they had been the targets to racial slurs in Bladenboro, a rural town with a predominantly white population.
The mysterious hanging of a black North Carolina teen took new twist Thursday when a 32-year-old white woman he was dating said she fears he was murdered over their interracial romance.Michelle Brimhall broke her silence in the death of 17-year-old Lennon Lacy, revealing they had been hassled by white neighbors upset over their relationship. “I believe Lennon was murdered,” Brimhall told DailyMail​.com. “The police ruled his death a suicide but Lennon would never harm himself. He’s got too much love for life.” The FBI launched an investigation earlier this month into the high school football player’s Aug. 29 death after his parents and the North Carolina branch of the NAACP rejected a medical examiner’s findings that he killed himself. Findings by an independent pathologist hired by the local NAACP contradicted the medical examiner’s ruling and added fuel to suspicions that Lacy was the victim of a lynching. Brimhall said she had been alarmed by racist slurs she received over her relationship with Lennon from neighbors in
Lennon Lacy mother speaks on son's hanging death
Lennon Lacy’s moth­er speaks on son’s hang­ing death
Bladenboro — a small rural town whose population is 80% white and 18% black. “Neighbors had told me they were against interracial relationships and it was ‘not right’ me being with a black guy,” said Brimhall, who went into hiding following Lennon’s death. She added that the Ku Klux Klan has held marches in Bladenboro and even has a meeting house in the community some minorities have dubbed “Crackertown.”

We tried to keep it (our rela­tion­ship) a secret,” Brimhall told DailyMail​.com. “We would walk to the store togeth­er but we nev­er held hands or kissed or any of that stuff out in pub­lic.” Lennon’s moth­er, Claudia Lacy, told the Daily News on Sunday that she and Lennon’s father were against the May-December affair and even tried to get Brimhall to

White girlfriend of Lennon Lacy said he was ‘murdered’
White girl­friend of Lennon Lacy said he was ‘mur­dered’

break it off. A close friend of Lennon also said Brimhall was a crack-addict­ed pros­ti­tute. Brimhall’s father con­firmed in an inter­view with The News that she has a drug prob­lem. “We told his mom and dad that we had stopped see­ing each oth­er because they were get­ting on him because of the age dif­fer­ence,” said Brimhall, who denied she is a drug addict. “Miss Claudia didn’t want to see her son hurt,” Brimhall said. “But I always tried to help him and push him for­ward.” While Lennon’s par­ents sus­pect she knows more about their son’s death than she is let­ting on, but Brimhall said she has noth­ing to hide. She denied her estranged hus­band, who lives in Illinois, was involved in Lennon’s death. “I don’t know what hap­pened but I know my ex-hus­band would not get the bus down from Illinois to kill my boyfriend,” Brimhall said.

Tasers May Soon Be Used By Less Experienced NYPD Cops.….….

Use of Tasers by the NYPD has generally been limited to sergeants and members of the elite Emergency Service Unit, but less experienced officers could soon be using them, police sources say.
Use of Tasers by the NYPD has gen­er­al­ly been lim­it­ed to sergeants and mem­bers of the élite Emergency Service Unit, but less expe­ri­enced offi­cers could soon be using them, police sources say.

Use of Tasers by the NYPD has gen­er­al­ly been lim­it­ed to sergeants and mem­bers of the élite Emergency Service Unit, but less expe­ri­enced offi­cers could soon be using them, police sources say. The department’s planned pur­chase of 450 new Tasers, announced by Commissioner Bill Bratton last week, will bring the NYPD’s sup­ply to at least 1,121. In 2006, the NYPD’s Taser arse­nal stood at 160. Police sources said that more offi­cers are being trained to use Tasers as a non­lethal alter­na­tive to gun­fire, and that a recent pat­tern of increased Taser use by NYPD cops will like­ly con­tin­ue. This year, there have been slight­ly more than 300 inci­dents of cops using Tasers. In 2013 and 2012, there were about 200 inci­dents per year, accord­ing to the department.

Tasers are used as part of our force con­tin­uüm,” said Deputy Chief Kim Royster, an NYPD spokes­woman. Complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board regard­ing Taser use and alle­ga­tions of exces­sive force increased in 2014 com­pared to the year before, a pat­tern that also held for

Eugene O’Donnell, a John Jay College professor who served on the mayor’s public safety transition committee, said the NYPD has to guard against police relying too much on the Taser.
Eugene O’Donnell, a John Jay College pro­fes­sor who served on the mayor’s pub­lic safe­ty tran­si­tion com­mit­tee, said the NYPD has to guard against police rely­ing too much on the Taser.

the 2013 total com­pared to that of 2012, accord­ing to the agency. But only 2 of 75 such inves­ti­ga­tions com­plet­ed since 2009 have been sub­stan­ti­at­ed by the CCRBThis year, there have been slight­ly more than 300 inci­dents of cops using Tasers. In 2013 and 2012, there were about 200 inci­dents per year, accord­ing to the depart­ment. In the first one, a Bronx man bust­ed on a parole war­rant said he was jolt­ed by a Taser while hand­cuffed, then fell to the ground and broke bones in his face. The accused sergeant plead­ed guilty to admin­is­tra­tive charges and lost five vaca­tion days. In the sec­ond case, sub­stan­ti­at­ed this year, a woman said a cop used a Taser on her inside a Brooklyn precinct sta­tion­house in 2013. Disciplinary action is pend­ing against the accused cop. In 52 oth­er com­plet­ed inves­ti­ga­tions, the accused offi­cer was exon­er­at­ed, the CCRB said. Another 16 alle­ga­tions were deemed unfounded.

Eugene O’Donnell, a John Jay College pro­fes­sor who served on the mayor’s pub­lic safe­ty tran­si­tion com­mit­tee, said the NYPD has to guard against police rely­ing too much on the Taser. “If you hand a tool to some­body I think human nature and some research shows you may rely on that more than using a non-vio­lent approach,” he said. rparascandola@​nydailynews.​com

NYPD Cops Once Again Pummel 12 Year Old With Blows

Internal Affairs is inves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances of an arrest, cap­tured on video, that shows a plain­clothes cop repeat­ed­ly punch­ing a teen sus­pect in the body as three uni­formed cops were try­ing to sub­due and hand­cuff him, police said.

Hey! Hey! Hey!” one woman is heard yelling. “Stop it! Get off of him!”

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Another woman can be heard iden­ti­fy­ing her­self as a lawyer and say­ing the sus­pect is only 12 years old.

I can’t believe he just did that after every­thing that’s hap­pened,” she said, an appar­ent ref­er­ence to the Eric Garner case and oth­er inci­dents cap­tured on video.

The NYPD said Internal Affairs is inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent. Police also said two sus­pects, includ­ing the one struck, were arrest­ed for assault­ing anoth­er per­son with a cane.

The exact date and time of the inci­dent was not clear.http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-plainclothes-officer-hits-youth-cuffed-article‑1.2050762

Obama Race Relations Has Gotten Better: But Has It Really

RACE RELATIONS HAVE GOTTEN BETTER, MORE PROGRESS NEEDED”. 

Obama
Obama

Those are the words of Barack Obama President of the United States. 
President Obama made those com­ments in an in depth inter­view with People Magazine.
In the inter­view the President detailed being mis­tak­en for a wait­er and Valet.’ The President’s wife, first lady Michelle Obama recalls that once they were at a black tie affair and some­one asked her hus­band to get coffee.
According to the cou­ple these events occurred just pri­or to mis­ter Obama’s ascen­dan­cy to the Presidency.
In actu­al­i­ty with­in this decade. 
Barack Obama has come under severe scruti­ny and endured much crit­i­cisms on his response to recent police killing of unarmed peo­ple, large­ly African American males.
By the way that cri­tique is com­ing from some of his staunchest sup­port­ers , includ­ing Professors Michael Eric Dyson, Cornell West and oth­ers. Supporters believe he vac­il­lates between speak­ing out stri­dent­ly against oppres­sion and pla­cat­ing white America. Mister Obama’s demeanor seem to be one that shies away from con­fronta­tion. In some quar­ters that may give the appear­ance of weak­ness. However Obama’s stance on the issue of race is not nec­es­sar­i­ly one of weak­ness per sey.

when is enough, enough, what more are blacks waiting for to gain the respect they deserve
when is enough, enough, what more are blacks wait­ing for to gain the respect they deserve

Obama spoke out when his friend Tenured Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates was wrong­ly pro­filed and arrest­ed on his own prop­er­ty by a Boston cop. The new President said then:
“I don’t know, not hav­ing been there and not see­ing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it’s fair to say, num­ber one, any of us would be pret­ty angry; num­ber two, that the Cambridge police act­ed stu­pid­ly in arrest­ing some­body when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, num­ber three, what I think we know sep­a­rate and apart from this inci­dent is that there’s a long his­to­ry in this coun­try of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforce­ment dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly. That’s just a fact.”

Obama also spoke out on the Travyon Martin Killing, stating :

The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his fam­i­ly, or for any one com­mu­ni­ty, but for America. I know this case has elicit­ed strong pas­sions. And in the wake of the ver­dict, I know those pas­sions may be run­ning even high­er. “But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spo­ken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflec­tion from two par­ents who lost their young son. “And as we do, we should ask our­selves if we’re doing all we can to widen the cir­cle of com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing in our own com­mu­ni­ties. We should ask our­selves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun vio­lence that claims too many lives across this coun­try on a dai­ly basis. “We should ask our­selves, as indi­vid­u­als and as a soci­ety, how we can pre­vent future tragedies like this. As cit­i­zens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to hon­or Trayvon Martin.”

Sorry to burst your bubble mister president , not a darn thing has changed
Sorry to burst your bub­ble mis­ter pres­i­dent , not a darn thing has changed

These were pret­ty defin­i­tive state­ments com­ing from the President, the prob­lems is not that he does­n’t speak out , it’s what he does after white peo­ple push back, he seem to pull back. In the Gates saga he capit­u­lat­ed by invit­ing the cop to the white house for a beer. A def­i­nite no no if you ask me. That was a sign of weak­ness in my estimation.
Since then Obama seem to be at pains not to get involved in the thorny issue of race in America. Now many say “well he is the pres­i­dent of all America he can­not take one side over another!
Perfectly true and he shouldn’t.
But no one is ask­ing him to. 
The President is the high­est elect­ed Official in the coun­try, he can­not run for anoth­er office after his sec­ond term is over. If Obama can­not stand firm­ly and deci­sive­ly against racial hatred in America now, when will he?
Strongly con­demn­ing entrenched racist atti­tudes in some sec­tors of white America is not tak­ing sides. It is the right thing to do.
Who cares about the howls of con­dem­na­tion which are sure to fol­low? To hell with those who scream, if you chose neu­tral­i­ty you actu­al­ly chose the side of the oppressor. 

Eric Garner dead at the hands of cops who choked him to death
Eric Garner dead at the hands of cops who choked him to death

Those who scream about the pres­i­dent should not take sides, are those who ben­e­fit the most from over 400 years of White suprema­cy and racial enti­tle­ments in this country.
Racism can go away today if white America chose to end it.
They start­ed it,they per­pet­u­ate it, they can end it.
This is the rea­son I strong­ly dis­agree with the pres­i­dent that race rela­tions are get­ting bet­ter. The fact that Barack Obama was elect­ed pres­i­dent is a net pos­i­tive for him. It’s a net pos­i­tive for the coun­try and to some extent in the long run black America. At the moment how­ev­er, there is a seri­ous white-lash against his pres­i­den­cy which is hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for oth­ers less pow­er­ful than he.
No race has author­i­ty over another. 
No race is supe­ri­or to the other.
No race is more enti­tled to this plan­et than others.
On that basis alone black Americans should wait not one minute more to be treat­ed equal­ly and fair­ly in this land their fore-par­ents vis­it­ed first. They should wait not one minute more in this land their fore-par­ents slaved and died for, got raped and muti­lat­ed for.
Many whites speak about America with a sense of own­er­ship, as if every­one else are mere intruders,or vis­i­tors at best. Intruders and vis­i­tors there to be treat­ed based on their per­son­al feel­ings and bias­es. Blacks must seize the moment, but most impor­tant­ly they must assume own­er­ship of their coun­try, and be pre­pared to die for it. They must be pre­pared to die so that their chil­dren may live out the promise this land has for their chil­dren, all chil­dren. Once and for this refugee in their own land sta­tus must come to an end.
th (3)We have …come to this hal­lowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the lux­u­ry of cool­ing off or to take the tran­quil­iz­ing drug of grad­u­al­ism. Now is the time to make real the promis­es of democ­ra­cy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and des­o­late val­ley of seg­re­ga­tion to the sun­lit path of … jus­tice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick­sands of … injus­tice to the sol­id rock of broth­er­hood. Now is the time to make jus­tice a real­i­ty for all of God’s children.” 
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

President Obama can­not be con­sumed by polls which indi­cate falling num­bers on his han­dling of race. There will be howls of dis­con­tent and anger. Those howls will come from those who are sat­is­fied ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the sta­tus quo. That is unten­able, that is unacceptable.
There comes a time when doing what is right trumps what is pop­u­lar, now is the time.

President Reveals He Was Mistaken For A Valet And Waiter Before He Became President

Obama, pictured in December, was mistaken for a waiter when he was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie function before he became President.
Obama, pic­tured in December, was mis­tak­en for a wait­er when he was wear­ing a tuxe­do at a black-tie func­tion before he became President.

President Obama revealed how he was mis­tak­en for a valet and a wait­er before he became President in a deeply per­son­al inter­view on race rela­tions in the U.S. “There’s no black male my age, who’s a pro­fes­sion­al, who has­n’t come out of a restau­rant and is wait­ing for their car and some­body did­n’t hand them their car keys,” the President told People mag­a­zine, con­firm­ing that he had expe­ri­enced being tak­en for a valet. The President was joined by the First Lady for the mag­a­zine inter­view, “How We Deal with Our Own Racist Experiences.”

Michelle Obama also remem­bered that when he was a guest at a black-tie din­ner, “some­body asked him to get cof­fee.” Before the fam­i­ly moved into the White House in 2009 and Obama became com­man­der-in-chief, “Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of trou­bles catch­ing cabs,” the First Lady added. Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Rosman had pre­vi­ous­ly shared how she wit­nessed Obama on the receiv­ing end of dis­crim­i­na­tion at a New York City book par­ty host­ed by Tina Brown in 2003. Rosman had been chat­ting with Obama at the soirée and when they fin­ished their con­ver­sa­tion, a fel­low guest inquired after the man’s iden­ti­ty, admit­ting that he had mis­tak­en him for the wait staff. “I was approached by anoth­er guest, an estab­lished author. He asked about the man I had been talk­ing to. Sheepishly he told me he didn’t know that Obama was a guest at the par­ty, and had asked him to fetch him a drink. In less than six years, Obama has gone from being mis­tak­en for a wait­er among the New York media élite, to the pres­i­dent-elect,” Rosman wrote. Despite the inci­dents in his past, the President told People that racial rela­tions have got­ten bet­ter, but more progress is need­ed. He says the small indig­ni­ties they have expe­ri­enced pale in com­par­i­son to young men who have been mis­tak­en for crim­i­nals just for being “dressed the way teenagers dress.” llarson@​nydailynews.​com

Daily News: Witness 40 In Michael Browns Murder Case A Raging Racist

Witness 40' for Ferguson grand jury is racist liar: report - NY Daily ...
Witness 40′ for Ferguson grand jury is racist liar: report — NY Daily …
The key witness, who described Michael Brown charging ‘like a football player’ at Officer Darren Wilson in the moments before the fatal Aug. 9 shooting, has been named as Sandra McElroy, a 45-year-old St. Louis woman and Wilson supporter who likely was not even in Ferguson the day of the shooting. The Smoking Gun report found McElroy, who once lied to police in another high-profile St. Louis case, has a history of racist rants online and was convicted of felony check fraud.

A men­tal­ly ill woman who used the N‑word to describe blacks and pre­vi­ous­ly lied to police about wit­ness­ing a high-pro­file crime was allowed to act as “Witness 40” for the Ferguson grand jury, even though she like­ly was not there and was a known, out­spo­ken backer of Officer Darren Wilson, accord­ing to reports. Convicted felon Sandra McElroy, 45, didn’t give police a wit­ness state­ment about the Aug. 9 killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown until Sept. 11, well after sev­er­al descrip­tions of the shoot­ing had been detailed in the press, an inves­ti­ga­tion by The Smoking Gun found. And her now oft-cit­ed account, that Brown charged at a defense­less Wilson “like a foot­ball play­er,” fol­lows much of what Wilson told inves­ti­ga­tors about that day. But her sto­ries, giv­en to local and fed­er­al author­i­ties and presented

Michael Brown
Michael Brown

over two dif­fer­ent days to the 12-per­son grand jury, are con­flict­ing and filled with bizarre twists and details that make it like­ly she didn’t even wit­ness the shoot­ing. Instead, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun, she like­ly sought to cast her­self as a key play­er in the con­tentious sto­ry that end­ed with riots in Ferguson and protests around the world after the grand jury failed to indict Wilson in the killing. “I know what I seen,” she told fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors at one point. “I know you don’t believe me.” The report has giv­en new hope to the team rep­re­sent­ing Brown’s fam­i­ly, the Rev. Al Sharpton told the Daily News on Tuesday, because it “shows (the grand jury) was not a fair process. There was ques­tion­able testimony.”

Lawyers for the Brown fam­i­ly are review­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny and new details, Sharpton said, and will for­ward any find­ings to the fed­er­al jus­tice depart­ment, which is review­ing the case for pos­si­ble civ­il rights violations. 

Sharpton said the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the “Witness 40” fias­co lies in the hands of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. “Whether she was allowed to tes­ti­fy out of neg­li­gence or whether (her his­to­ry) was known, either way it is grounds for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct,” Sharpton said. “There seem to be grounds to ques­tion the puri­ty of the grand jury process and the pros­e­cu­tor who han­dled it.” “Witness 40” gave very lit­tle rea­son for any­one to believe her. She told inves­ti­ga­tors in October that she was in Ferguson — some 30 miles from her home — the day of the shoot­ing because she want­ed to “pop in” on a friend she hadn’t seen in 26 years and had got­ten lost, an account giv­en to the grand jury on Oct. 23, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun.

Darren Wilson
Darren Wilson

She was ask­ing for direc­tions from a man on the street when an unarmed Brown attacked and charged the offi­cer, she said, forc­ing Wilson to open fire. McElroy, once the pan­el broke for the day, told pros­e­cu­tors that she had writ­ten down her account, and offered to bring in her “jour­nal” so she could “make sure I don’t get things con­fused because then it will be word for word,” the web­site report­ed. McElroy fre­quent­ly post­ed neg­a­tive com­ments about Michael Brown, 18, in the days, weeks and months after he was killed. When she returned 11 days lat­er with the writ­ten account, the sto­ry had com­plete­ly changed.

Well Im gonna take my ran­dom dri­ve to Florisant,” the first jour­nal entry read. “Need to under­stand the Black race bet­ter so I stop call­ing Blacks N — –s and Start call­ing them People.” She told the grand jury she fre­quent­ly likes to “go into all the African-American neigh­bor­hoods” where she is known to go “in and have cof­fee and I will strike up a con­ver­sa­tion with an African-American and I will try to talk to them because I’m try­ing to under­stand more.” All of her state­ments were made under oath — and appear not to be the first time she’s lied to police. In 2007, McElroy told KMOV-TV that she’d long known high-pro­file kid­nap­ping sus­pect Michael Devlin, who’d recent­ly been arrest­ed for keep­ing St. Louis boy Shawn Hornbeck cap­tive for four years. Police in the St. Louis sub­urb of Kirkwood lat­er shot back at McElroy’s claims that she had tipped off police to evi­dence in the case long before Hornbeck was rescued.

Bob McCulloch, the St Louis county prosecutor
Bob McCulloch, the St Louis coun­ty prosecutor

The Kirkwood Police Department has inves­ti­gat­ed her alle­ga­tion and we have no record of any con­tact with Mrs. McElroy in regards to Shawn Hornbeck,police wrote at the time.We have found this sto­ry is a com­plete fab­ri­ca­tion.” That same year, McElroy was con­vict­ed of felony check fraud charges and giv­en three years pro­ba­tion, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun. She also told the grand jury she’d been diag­nosed as bipo­lar but hadn’t tak­en her med­ica­tion in 25 years and that she’d been severe­ly injured in a 2001 car crash that left her with mem­o­ry loss. And in 2005, while she and her then-hus­band were in the midst of a bank­rupt­cy fil­ing, the couple’s attor­ney with­drew from the case because Sandra McElroy fre­quent­ly called the offi­cer and “repeat­ed­ly used pro­fan­i­ty when speak­ing with Counsel’s sec­re­tary,” scream­ing match­es that “esca­lat­ed to the use of racial slurs,” doc­u­ments obtained by The Smoking Gun reveal. Her racism and dis­re­gard for black peo­ple is well-doc­u­ment­ed by McElroy’s social media foot­print, which includes some dis­turb­ing com­ments. She used her YouTube account to write “put them mon­keys in a cage,” on a clip about two black women being sen­tenced for mur­der, The Smoking Gun report­ed. And a sec­ond clip, about a white woman who went miss­ing while in an inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ship, McElroy wrote, “she what hap­pens when you bed down with a mon­key have ape babies and par­ty with them.” She also used Facebook to chime in on the Ferguson shoot­ing, post­ing opin­ion­at­ed, race-dri­ven com­ments before, dur­ing and after she gave wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny to the grand jury.

On Aug. 17, she wrote, “Prayers, sup­port God Bless Officer Wilson,” while less than a month lat­er, she post­ed a graph­ic of a dead Michael Brown lying in the street, over­layed with a pho­to of a smirk­ing Wilson and text that read, “Michael Brown already received jus­tice. So please, stop ask­ing for it.” She also spear­head­ed an online fundrais­er to raise mon­ey for law enforce­ment offi­cers in the St. Louis area who had “been deal­ing with all the long hours” polic­ing the Ferguson unrest, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun. A call to a spokesman for McCulloch was not imme­di­ate­ly returned. Attempts by the Daily News to con­tact McElroy were unsuc­cess­ful. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/witness-40-ferguson-grand-jury-racist-liar-report-article‑1.2047404

Enhanced Video Good To Arrest College Professor : Great Quality Un-enhanced Video Not Enough To Indict Cop Who Killed Garner

Commisioner William Bratton . lets see Bratton bring the same level of determination and fortitude to demanding that a Federal grand jury indict Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner
Commisioner William Bratton . lets see Bratton bring the same lev­el of deter­mi­na­tion and for­ti­tude to demand­ing that a Federal grand jury indict Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner

Two NYPD cops attached to the depart­ments legal affairs bureau were alleged­ly assault­ed on the Brooklyn Bridge , sup­pos­ed­ly dur­ing a peace­ful march over the week­end. The two, Patrick Sullivan and Phillip Chan are both Lieutenants. The pair were sup­pos­ed­ly wear­ing NYPD jack­ets with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and were there to ensure pro­test­ers rights were pro­tect­ed , as report­ed by CBS​.com and the Associated Press. 
Which brings us to ask why are spe­cial cops there to ensure cit­i­zens fun­da­men­tal right to protest against their gov­ern­ment? Aren’t all cops sup­posed to be par­tic­u­lar­ly alert­ed and informed on that fact? What hap­pens when legal affairs is not there?

I believe we all know what hap­pens when they are not.
The NYPD has since arrest­ed Eric Linkser a 29-year-old Baruch College Professor who teach­es Composition. Notice how quick­ly they arrest­ed some­one who alleged­ly attacked one of their own? The Commissioner William Bratton said quote: “We do not take attacks on our police offi­cers light­ly, we nev­er have and nev­er will,”. I bet New Yorkers of col­or would like that sense of res­olute­ness when it comes to police vio­lence on them. 
The Department says there are oth­ers involved in the alleged attack , which they say occurred when the two cops inter­vened when Linkser alleged­ly tried to toss a 50-pound garbage can from the ele­vat­ed walk­way at offi­cers on the road­way below. They are sup­pos­ed­ly putting togeth­er a twelve thou­sand dol­lar ($12,000.00 reward to fer­ret out oth­ers involved in the assault. 
The young man who video­taped NYPD cops killing Eric Garner was arrest­ed on weapons charges, rather con­ve­nient­ly after the video became pub­lic. Pantaleo the cop who killed Garner and the oth­er mur­der­ers who aid­ed and abet­ted him have so far faced no crim­i­nal sanctions.

A disrespectful   Ed Mullins calls the Mayor a Nincompoop , how do they treat people with no power is the real questions those who support everything cops do
A dis­re­spect­ful Ed Mullins calls the Mayor a Nincompoop , how do they treat peo­ple with no pow­er is the real ques­tion those who sup­port every­thing cops do should ponder

In respond­ing to the inci­dent New York City’s Mayor Bill deBlasio called the inci­dent an “alleged assault” That char­ac­ter­i­za­tion drew the ire of the sergeants benev­o­lent asso­ci­a­tion. Union pres­i­dent Ed Mullins labeled the Mayor a “nin­com­poop”. The PBA pres­i­dent Patrick Lynch who encour­aged mem­bers to sign a peti­tion demand­ing that the Mayor and city Council pres­i­dent not attend their funer­al in the event they are killed in the line of duty, said “It is very clear to me that the may­or has no idea of just how angry New York City police offi­cers are at him for his lack of sup­port and for lay­ing decades of soci­ety’s prob­lems unde­served­ly at their feet.”

Does any­one recall when Rudolph Giuliani led a rag-tag throng of drunk­en cops in 1992 onto the steps of City Hall in protest against Mayor David Dinkins? Yup, they called Dinkins a N****r, they called him a wash-room atten­dant. Do you detect the same kind of dis­re­spect to this Mayor who is mar­ried to a black woman ?
In 2007 the New York dai­ly news Mike Mcalary wrote ” This city has two police forces: one small and hor­ri­ble, and one great and noble. People see the uni­form and fig­ure all cops are part of the hor­ror. That’s not true. In the 1820s, the city had two police forces, and they fought on the steps of City Hall. That police riot occurred when one force tried to arrest the may­or. The clos­est we’ve come to that was when Giuliani encour­aged a police mob to rat­tle then-Mayor David Dinkins in 1992”.

PBA president Patrick Lynch has lost all credibility , he blames Eric Garner for his own death. A regular loud-mouth no one takes him seriously on police issues, he is more harm than good to officers
PBA pres­i­dent Patrick Lynch has lost all cred­i­bil­i­ty , he blames Eric Garner for his own death. A reg­u­lar loud-mouth no one takes him seri­ous­ly on police issues, he is more harm than good to officers

The depart­ment is active­ly seek­ing oth­ers involved in the mele. Bratton said the video of the assaults has been enhanced to help find the sus­pects. Isn’t it incred­i­ble how quick­ly they will enhance a shaky video to prove some­one attacked one of their own but will not acknowl­edge they mur­dered an inno­cent man on a video which need­ed no enhancement ?
I don’t know whether or not there are two police forces in new york city., Many peo­ple of col­or have nev­er seen the noble depart­ment Mike Mcalarry spoke of sev­en years ago, even though they are decent law abid­ing citizens.
What they see dai­ly is the “hor­ri­ble” the one above the law, the thug­gish one which demands respect even as it heaps scorn, deri­sion ‚con­tempt and dis­re­spect on oth­ers, even those set above them.
Every grouse, every gripe of the PBA and oth­er unions seem to be about respect. The unions would do them­selves and their mem­bers a tremen­dous ser­vice by being respect­ful to the Mayor, City Council President and peo­ple of col­or in the city, maybe then they will see a turn around in the way peo­ple respond to them.
As a very famous Pastor say from time to time,“If you want some­thing from God, give that thing to some­one else”. Give respect, you get respect. You do not demand respect , you com­mand respect. Stop whin­ing and com­plain­ing about just how dan­ger­ous your job is . No one forced you to join the police depart­ment, you did so of your own free will, and you are paid well to do it.
People have a right to demand that they be treat­ed fair­ly and just­ly, the laws does not only apply when the police say they apply.
If utter­ances and behav­ior are any­thing to go by, this police depart­ment is expo­nen­tial­ly worse than most peo­ple know. People in under served com­mu­ni­ties will tell you they do not call cops. Cops to them are no dif­fer­ent from reg­u­lar gang­sters. Many rob, beat, rape, steal, plant drugs, fal­si­fy reports and kill peo­ple with­out consequence.
These res­i­dents of the city have nev­er seen the “great and noble”.
Too many in the NYPD see them­selves above the laws and the peo­ple who hire and pay them. The media Houses are active cheer-lead­ers in this process, mak­ing them feel above being held account­able. It is time the back of this men­tal­i­ty is bro­ken once and for all.

Two NYP Cops Allegedly Attacked Assaulted

 Eric Linkse
Eric Linkser

Police are expect­ed to talk about putting togeth­er a reward in the search for six peo­ple who alleged­ly assault­ed two NYPD lieu­tenants dur­ing a protest over the week­end. There was a thank you Monday night from Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to who­ev­er post­ed this video on YouTube.

YouTube player

I want to thank them with pro­vid­ing us with the evi­dence will use to arrest and suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute them,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said. The video of the assaults has been enhanced to help find the suspects.
Investigators say the video shows lieu­tenants Patrick Sullivan and Phillip Chan being assault­ed Saturday night by a small group of peo­ple dur­ing a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge. They were try­ing to arrest Eric Linkser, who they say resist­ed arrested.
The 29-year-old alleged­ly tried to toss a 50-pound garbage can from the ele­vat­ed walk­way at offi­cers on the road­way below.
He man­aged to get away but the Baruch College pro­fes­sor was arrest­ed hours later.

Police are now look­ing for six more peo­ple, three men and three women, who tried to stop the arrest.
“It’s a two-minute peri­od that goes by where there are indi­vid­u­als who are punch­ing and kick­ing our two lieu­tenants. Linkser is clear­ly resist­ing and there is video evi­dence that he throws a punch,” said Chief of Detectives William Aubry, NYPD.
Both offi­cers suf­fered bumps and bruis­es; one end­ed up with a bro­ken nose.
Detectives say the man in the dark cap kicked Sullivan while he was on the ground. Another woman in a mul­ti­col­ored skirt yanked Sullivan back­wards. A man in a hood­ed sweat­shirt punched Chan in the face. A woman in a red scarf took a swing at the offi­cers. Both offi­cers were wear­ing NYPD jack­ets with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and were work­ing with the Legal Affairs Bureau to ensure pro­test­ers rights were pro­tect­ed. “Our goal is that the peace­ful pro­test­ers get the right to protest. And inci­dents like what occurred on Saturday night small group try­ing to pre­vent what was oth­er­wise a rather … peace­ful day. Many fam­i­lies who want­ed to express to her out­rage,” said Deputy Commissioner Larry Burn, NYPD Legal Affairs.

We do not take attacks on our police offi­cers light­ly, we nev­er have and nev­er will,” Bratton said.

Cops wrestle with protesters on Brooklyn bridge
Cops wres­tle with pro­test­ers on Brooklyn bridge

The judge set a court date for Linkser in March, and told him that felony charges are pend­ing for then, when he sees what kind of evi­dence police will have at that time, par­tic­u­lar­ly for kick­ing an offi­cer in the face. Police insist there is video evi­dence of Linkser resist­ing arrest and punch­ing the offi­cer. Linkser, who teach­es com­po­si­tion at Baruch, is not afraid to share his anti-police views. He has gone on record with anti-police state­ments, and dur­ing the protests, Linkser’s Twitter page was laden with pic­tures of police car van­dal­ism and com­ments with the hash­tag “turn up the anger.” Meanwhile, it was de Blasio’s com­ments regard­ing the assault that angered the Sergeants Benevolent Association union. He denounced the attack, which he called an “alleged assault.” The use of the word “alleged” upset the sergeants union so much that it prompt­ed the pres­i­dent to call de Blasio a “nin­com­poop.”
“And I feel that we have an inde­ci­sive may­or,” union pres­i­dent Ed Mullins said. “And if we look at the his­to­ry of what he’s been doing, this has been an admin­is­tra­tion that has been filled with tur­moil and a lot of indecisiveness.”

It came just one day after union offi­cials offered a peti­tion to its mem­bers that, if signed, would ask the may­or and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to stay away from their funer­als should they be killed in the line of duty. De Blasio called the peti­tion unac­cept­able and divi­sive. PBA pres­i­dent Patrick J. Lynch respond­ed to the com­ments, say­ing, “It is very clear to me that the may­or has no idea of just how angry New York City police offi­cers are at him for his lack of sup­port and for lay­ing decades of soci­ety’s prob­lems unde­served­ly at their feet.” On Monday, the may­or was more force­ful in his denounc­ing of the assault, and also called on peace­ful pro­test­ers to step up. “We had a very small num­ber of peo­ple who did the wrong thing, and it will not be tol­er­at­ed,” de Blasio said. “But I’m ask­ing those who are work­ing for change to step up and speak out and make clear that any attack on the police will not be tol­er­at­ed, and to work with the police to find any­one and every­one involved.”
De Blasio also was the focus of a group of demon­stra­tors on Monday night. About 50 pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side Gracie Mansion, the may­oral res­i­dence, call­ing on him to take steps includ­ing end­ing the pol­i­cy of “bro­ken win­dows” polic­ing, which means going after low-lev­el crimes as a means of deter­rence, to keep peo­ple from com­mit­ting more seri­ous offens­es. Other demands includ­ed pas­sage of the “Right to Know” act, which would require offi­cers to tell peo­ple they’ve stopped that they have the right not to con­sent to a vol­un­tary search. De Blasio was host­ing an event at the res­i­dence. Many of those attend­ing kept away from the pro­test­ers, with a few stop­ping to get fliers. On Monday, Timothy Cardinal Dolan got involved. He wrote in the Daily News that it is wrong to demo­nize the may­or and also wrong to be dis­re­spect­ful toward police.
On Saturday, as many as 30,000 peo­ple flood­ed the streets of New York City, even shut­ting down the Brooklyn Bridge call­ing for change to the jus­tice sys­tem. It was a heavy day of demon­stra­tions begin­ning in Washington Square Park in the morn­ing, as thou­sands set off from Lower Manhattan to Midtown dur­ing the heart of hol­i­day shop­ping, where traf­fic screeched to a near stand­still. The marchers then head­ed down to One Police Plaza. Five police offi­cers have been injured in scuf­fles with protesters.
The Associated Press con­tributed to this report.
(cbsnews​.com

Black America A $1.3 Trillion Well Lubricated Conduit

While the over­all pop­u­la­tion says it will spend about 10% more on hol­i­day gifts this year, than last year, African Americans say they plan to spend 17% more.
• All shop­pers: Will spend 12% more on gift cards; 10% more on elec­tron­ic mer­chan­dise and 10% more on toys.
• African Americans: Will spend 17% more on elec­tron­ics, 17% more on food, and 15% more on apparel.
The Nielsen research high­light­ing the pro­ject­ed growth of minor­i­ty spend­ing can help retail­ers and mar­keters focus on who to tar­get. (Neilsen.
In sim­ple lan­guage, there will be a lot more black faces in Television commercials.
Black spend­ing pow­er is fore­cast to reach as much as 1.1 Trillion by 2017 and some even more aggres­sive sam­pling sug­gest­ing it will top 1.5 Trillion as ear­ly as 2015.
That’s 44 mil­lion peo­ple spend­ing a pro­ject­ed 1.5 Trillion dol­lars on con­sumer goods and ser­vices. Outpacing every oth­er demo­graph­ic group. Latinos being the clos­est in spending.

  1. images of excess
    images of excess

    Money cir­cu­lates zero to one time with­in the black com­mu­ni­ty, com­pared to the more than six times it cir­cu­lates in the Latino com­mu­ni­ty, nine times in the Asian com­mu­ni­ty, and an unlim­it­ed amount of times with­in the white com­mu­ni­ty, accord­ing to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.

    Birdie Ross-Haith grew up patron­iz­ing black-owned busi­ness­es. A native Victorian, Ross-Haith said her par­ents empha­sized to her and her sib­lings the impor­tance of sup­port­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty by pur­chas­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices from peo­ple who looked like them. As an adult with a busi­ness of her own, how­ev­er, Ross-Haith said that mind-set has seem­ing­ly fall­en by the way­side. “That’s what’s wrong with the black cul­ture now. They don’t try to help each oth­er,” said Ross-Haith, co-own­er of B&B Handbags. “(Black shop­pers) would come and look but nev­er buy. Ross-Haith’s state­ments come on the heels of recent­ly released data that reports black buying

    Some of the symbols of excess and stupidity
    Some of the sym­bols of excess and stupidity

    pow­er has increased from $957.3 bil­lion in 2010 to an expect­ed $1.1 tril­lion by 2015. Although this data from the State of the African-American Consumer Report reflects a pos­i­tive growth in blacks’ dis­pos­able income, the grow­ing fail­ure of blacks to do sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness with oth­er blacks casts a dark shad­ow over the news.”(Victoriaadvocate​.com.

    The sad real­i­ty is there is no end in sight blacks earn more and spend more. As is evi­denced by sur­vey after sur­vey, met­ric after met­ric, The black com­mu­ni­ty has made itself a well-lubri­cat­ed con­duit for mon­ey. No Nation can be pow­er­ful with­out eco­nom­ic pow­er. No peo­ple can be pow­er­ful with­out eco­nom­ic pow­er, Money.
    This Christmas as blacks march once again for jus­tice, they will put down their plac­ards and walk into Department stores plunk­ing down hun­dreds of mil­lions, if not bil­lions, on con­sumer goods and ser­vices many can ill afford.
    The unfor­tu­nate result is that very lit­tle, if any mea­sur­able per­cent­age of that expen­di­ture will find it’s way into black-owned businesses.

    The web­site (Blackmeinamerica reports

some of the ways blacks spend their money
some of the ways blacks spend their money

Black buy­ing pow­er con­tin­ues to increase, ris­ing from its cur­rent $1 tril­lion lev­els to a fore­cast­ed $1.3 tril­lion by 2017.

  • Each year, African Americans spend more than $47 bil­lion on Lincoln auto­mo­biles, $3.7 bil­lion on alco­hol, $2.5 bil­lion on Toyotas, $2 bil­lion on ath­let­ic shoes, and $600 mil­lion each year on McDonald’s and oth­er fast foods, accord­ing to Target Market News Inc., a Chicago-based mar­ket­ing research group.
  • Blacks also spend wild­ly to keep up their appear­ances. The black hair care and cos­met­ics indus­try counts as a $9 bil­lion a year busi­ness, but while African Americans are spend­ing the most, they are prof­it­ing the least, said offi­cials from the Black-Owned Beauty Supply Association (BOBSA) in Palo Alto, Calif. Beauty prod­uct lines designed for African Americans were once 100 per­cent owned and oper­at­ed by blacks, today oth­er eth­nic groups con­trol more than 70 per­cent of the market.
  • The cur­rent home­own­er­ship rate reveals that 73.5 per­cent of whites own homes while approx­i­mate­ly 43.9 per­cent of African Americans are home­own­ers, accord­ing to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies State of the Nation report for 2013.
  • Sixty per­cent of African Americans have less than $50,000 saved in com­pa­ny retire­ment plans and only 23 per­cent have more than $100,000. https://​bmia​.word​press​.com/​2​0​1​0​/​1​1​/​0​5​/​h​o​w​-​d​o​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​i​n​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​-​s​p​e​n​d​-​5​0​7​-​b​i​l​l​i​o​n​-​d​o​l​l​a​r​s​-​a​n​n​u​a​l​ly/.
  • The loy­al­ty blacks have to their church also has proven cost­ly, said offi­cials at Faith Communities Today, a non­prof­it based in Hartford, Conn. A 2013 study revealed that black church­es have col­lect­ed more than $420 bil­lion in tithes and dona­tions nation­wide since 1980, an aver­age of $252 mil­lion a week.
  • Spend, spend, none of the wealth stays n the community
    Spend, spend, spend, pre­cious lit­tle to noth­ing remains in the community

    black​amer​i​ca​.com The lat­ter part of the  report is par­tic­u­lar­ly instruc­tive. An esti­mat­ed $252 mil­lion dol­lars week­ly paid in tithes and offerings.
    Yet how many Pastors teach/​preach self-empow­er­ment? How many even care where Parishioners get the mon­ey they demand in tithes and offerings?
    Even with­in a sin­gle con­gre­ga­tion how many black con­gre­gants own busi­ness­es? Do their sis­ters and broth­ers in Christ know of these busi­ness­es? Do they shop at stores owned by fel­low con­gre­gants? The answer is a resound­ing no.
    As some­one who has owned a small busi­ness for the past 13 years, I can attest to those real­i­ties. I have heard the full gamut, “I ain’t mak­ing them rich”.
    The longer you are in busi­ness the small­er the share of the black com­mu­ni­ty you get. There is a psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­con­nect which I will leave to the pro­fes­sion­als. Having been in busi­ness all these years I laugh at them, the only time some come in is when they do not have enough mon­ey. In which case they expect you to sell to them at a loss. Even when their pock­ets are filled with mon­ey they want to make sure you actu­al­ly lose mon­ey sell­ing to them. Not so when they buy from oth­er merchants.
    In oth­er sit­u­a­tions, they come sell­ing stolen items, or solic­it­ing mon­ey when their kids sell stuff from school. Purchasing items is a give­away as they nev­er return to deliv­er the item/​s pur­chased. Finally, they come ask­ing store own­ers to fund bas­ket­ball, foot­ball, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty pro­grams, even though they nev­er spent a sin­gle pen­ny with you.
    Is it any won­der that those from the black com­mu­ni­ty who strike it rich some­times give noth­ing to the community?
    There is noth­ing to give back, the black com­mu­ni­ty gave noth­ing to them.
    Those are the facts whether we want to face them or not. In far too many instances the only time blacks walk into a black busi­ness is with out­stretched arms look­ing for a handout.
    There is a dis­tinct and gen­er­al desire to see each oth­er fail. If black America is to move for­ward that men­tal­i­ty will have to change.

    for­ward that men­tal­i­ty will have to change.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

Police Brutality Is Tyranny

Yes it is
Yes it is

Thousands , maybe mil­lions col­lec­tive­ly, march hand in hand dai­ly across America. They march in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the unarmed, killed by Agents of the states. The bod­ies are many, the ages diverse. Their col­or the only thing which binds them together.
I want to talk a lit­tle about the role states play in these deaths, but before I do I want to take a sec­ond to address a com­mon dis­claimer I hear from many who speak on this issue. Some black, some white , some cop, some not.

THEY ARGUE BLACKS DO NOT MAKEBIG DEAL ABOUT BLACK-ON-BLACK VIOLENCE

Civil Rights groups, church­es, NGO’s and a pletho­ra of oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties have done much work in com­bat­ing vio­lence in the black com­mu­ni­ty. Communities and indi­vid­u­als have done heavy lift­ing toward remov­ing the scourge of drug-deal­ing, drug-addic­tion, and oth­er vices which lead to vio­lence. Activists and Organizations like the Urban league , National Action Network, NAACP, and oth­ers are heav­i­ly invest­ed in com­bat­ing crime in urban centers.
Much more is required in deal­ing with the prob­lem of teenage preg­nan­cy , mass-incar­cer­a­tion of black male, gang affil­i­a­tion and violence.
With that said, black peo­ple com­mit­ted to chang­ing police aggres­sion toward them do not need a lec­ture from any­one, black, white or

Police abuse will not stop because states do not want it to stop
Police abuse will not stop because states do not want it to stop

pur­ple, cop, or not on black on black vio­lence. Blacks have a duty to fig­ure out their prob­lems, what­ev­er they are. What our com­mu­ni­ty does not need is to pay police Officers to kill our children.
Police offi­cers are employed and paid to inves­ti­gate crimes. When black crim­i­nals com­mit crimes they are arrest­ed and incar­cer­at­ed. In more instances than I care to dis­cuss, blacks are incar­cer­at­ed and exe­cut­ed even when they are inno­cent of the crimes they are accused of com­mit­ting. America’s pris­ons are brim­ming with black and brown men , over 65% of those locked up in America’s pris­ons are black and brown. Despite on a per-capi­ta whites com­mit more crimes than they do.

It is this dis­par­i­ty that has peo­ple of con­science up in arms about the con­tin­ued injus­tice in America. A spe­cial word of advise to the igno­rant blacks who par­rot the talk­ing points of igno­rant racist whites on this issue, go read a book, do some research before you open your stu­pid mouths or make moron­ic Youtube videos. You are stu­pid and you look stupid.
Go research what 400 years of Slavery, Chain-Gang, Jim-Crow,separate but equal, and exist­ing insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism has done to peo­ple of African ancestry. 

The Drone
The Drone

In a Bee colony the Queen lays eggs , mil­lions of them, this ensures that the specie con­tin­ue to exist.
Worker Bees gath­er pollen into the pollen bas­kets on their back legs, to car­ry back to the hive where it is used as food for the devel­op­ing brood. Pollen car­ried on their bod­ies may be car­ried to anoth­er flower where a small por­tion can rub off onto thepis­til, result­ing in cross pol­li­na­tion. Almost all of civ­i­liza­tion’s food sup­ply (maize is a note­wor­thy excep­tion) depends great­ly on crop pol­li­na­tion by hon­ey bees, whether direct­ly eat­en or used as for­age crops for ani­mals that pro­duce milk and meat. Nectar is sucked up through the pro­boscis, mixed with enzymes in the stom­ach, and car­ried back to the hive, where it is stored in wax cells and evap­o­rat­ed into hon­ey.
Drones, fig­u­ra­tive sense of ‘idler’ or ‘lazy work­er’, as male bees make no hon­ey, which is some­times giv­en as a folk ety­mol­o­gy of the word ‘drone’ itself.[Wikipedia]
In the great scheme of things there are those who do and there are those who don’t, at least the drones have the good sense to mate with the Queen. For you blacks who have no con­tri­bu­tion to make, even as you ben­e­fit from the strug­gles and sac­ri­fice of oth­ers, do every­one a favor and shut your stu­pid mouths.

This was supposed to be fixed 50 years ago
This was sup­posed to be fixed 50 years ago

Cops abuse and kill because States and munic­i­pal­i­ties want them to. Police are peo­ple, good peo­ple in many cas­es. Give the best guy/​girl a gun, badge , and unfet­tered pow­er and no need to account and you got a real prob­lem on your hands, their atti­tudes change, all of a sud­den the very peo­ple they are sworn to serve and pro­tect becomes their ene­my. Unworthy of respect, they become the big man, Gods even.
It’s not about the need for sup­port and some lee­way to do what we ask them to do . As we have seen over and over again states make extra effort to ensure when they kill they are not held accountable.
They kill as Agents of the state. They kill on behalf of the states. Eric Garner was mur­dered for what must have been the most infin­i­tes­i­mal white col­lar crime. Even if he was sell­ing un-taxed cig­a­rettes ‚(not proven) who was the vic­tim? Who was hurt?
I’ll tell you who, the State of New York was hurt. They are so des­per­ate for the few un-recov­ered pen­nies, it took sev­er­al well paid Thugs to kill Garner over those pennies.

States Legislators, Governors and oth­er offi­cials are heav­i­ly behold­en to Police Departments . Never mind what they say in pub­lic, cops know whose side they are on. Governors, Legislators and Mayors are large­ly white Caucasian male., The women they are more testos­terone laden than their male coun­ter­parts. Police abuse is going nowhere fast.
Anthony Baez was choked to death by Francis Livoti a tough-guy cop with mul­ti­ple com­plaints against him. Baez’s crime was a non-crime. His foot­ball struck a NYPD patrol car.
In sen­tenc­ing Livoti Judge Scheindlin issued a broad attack on the depart­men­t’s han­dling of Mr. Livoti’s case, and said that she had refrained from impos­ing an even greater sen­tence because the depart­ment shared some respon­si­bil­i­ty in Mr. Baez’s death. ”The Police

Same problems 50 years later, things must change once and for all
Same prob­lems 50 years lat­er, things must change once and for all

Department did Mr. Livoti and the peo­ple of this city a grave injus­tice when it per­mit­ted Mr. Livoti to remain on active patrol know­ing of his propen­si­ty toward vio­lence,” Judge Scheindlin said. ”There is no doubt in my mind that the depart­ment knew, or should have known, that Mr. Livoti was dan­ger­ous.” She said that nine ear­li­er police bru­tal­i­ty com­plaints against Mr. Livoti should have been enough ”to alert those in charge to the fact that Mr. Livoti should be off the streets, if not off the force.”
Francis Livoti was a pro­tégée and one of the poster child of Rudolph Giuliani’s dis­dain and dis­re­spect for black and brown res­i­dents of New York City. Anthony Baez and many oth­ers paid with their lives.

”The Police Department let him remain on the streets, know­ing that one day a real tragedy would occur,” she said.

State pro­ce­dures make it dif­fi­cult for cops to face a court of law. If police offi­cers do not have to face courts of law to account for their actions they become the law. They act that way, they say they are the law. Not enforcers of the law.
As black America and oth­ers take to the streets to protest , it is impor­tant to note that even as racism and dis­re­spect dri­ves many deci­sions police make to pull the trig­ger or oth­er­wise abuse blacks, they also do the same to whites.
It is impor­tant that whites rec­og­nize that even though police may be some­what less quick on the trig­ger on poor whites than they do peo­ple of col­or now. It is becom­ing more and more obvi­ous that pret­ty soon drunk with unmit­i­gat­ed pow­er they too will be killed with equal alacrity.
The peo­ple who draft leg­is­la­tion and those who sign them into laws are mere cor­po­rate tools. They are picked and placed by cor­po­rate oli­garchs to car­ry out their dictates.
Those dic­tates do not line up with that of the 99%..
Prisons have to be filled, cor­po­rate pup­peteers who run them are suing states because they are sup­pos­ed­ly los­ing mon­ey from too many emp­ty jail cells. Look around you , yes you , in your state they will be build­ing more pris­ons, while they close schools.
We are all in this togeth­er, black, white, yel­low brown, the soon­er we rec­og­nize this the better.

A Pastoral Letter To White Americans

The Rev. Jim Wallis is the president of Sojourners,
The Rev. Jim Wallis is the pres­i­dent of Sojourners,

The sto­ries of young black men being killed by white police are spark­ing a nation­al con­ver­sa­tion. However, pub­lic respons­es to these painful sto­ries reveal an alarm­ing racial divide. From an unarmed teenag­er killed in Ferguson, Missouri; to a 12 year-old boy shot dead in Cleveland; to a white police offi­cer on video chok­ing a black man to death in New York City; and a star­tling series of sim­i­lar sto­ries from across the coun­try and over many decades — our reac­tions show great dif­fer­ences in white and black per­spec­tives. Many white Americans tend to see this prob­lem as unfor­tu­nate inci­dents based on indi­vid­ual cir­cum­stances. Black Americans see a sys­tem in which their black lives mat­ter less than white lives. That is a fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence of expe­ri­ence between white and black Americans, between black and white par­ents, even between white and black Christians. The ques­tion is: Are we white peo­ple going to lis­ten or not?

White Americans talk about how hard and dan­ger­ous police work is — that most cops are good and are to be trust­ed. Black Americans agree that police work is dan­ger­ous­ly hard, but also have expe­ri­enced sys­temic police abuse of their fam­i­lies. All black peo­ple, espe­cial­ly black men, have their own sto­ries. Since there are so many sto­ries, are these real­ly just iso­lat­ed inci­dents? We lit­er­al­ly have two crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems in America — one for whites and one for blacks. Are there police uses of force that are under­stand­able and jus­ti­fi­able? Of course there are. If our soci­ety was­n’t steeped in a gun cul­ture, many of these shoot­ings could be avoid­ed. But has exces­sive, unnec­es­sary, lethal force been used over and over again, all across the coun­try, with white police killing unarmed black civil­ians? Yes, it has, and the evi­dence is over­whelm­ing. But will we white peo­ple lis­ten to it? Will white par­ents try to imag­ine how it would feel to have “the talk,” to tell their own chil­dren that they should­n’t trust those who are sup­posed to serve and pro­tect them? That’s hard to lis­ten to, hard to hear, hard to rec­og­nize the legit­i­ma­cy of oth­er par­ents’ expe­ri­ences when they are so dif­fer­ent from your own. It’s time to lis­ten — for us white Americans to lis­ten to black Americans; for white par­ents to lis­ten to black par­ents; for white Christians to lis­ten to black Christians. This may be the most impor­tant thing we have ever had to do: to lis­ten, real­ly listen.

Do we believe what we say about the uni­ty of “the body of Christ” or not? In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 12 speaks of one body with many members.

For just as the body is one and has many mem­bers, and all the mem­bers of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.… For the body does not con­sist of one mem­ber but of many… As it is, there are many parts, yet one body… that there may be no dis­cord in the body, but that the mem­bers may have the same care for one anoth­er. If one mem­ber suf­fers, all suf­fer togeth­er; if one mem­ber is hon­ored, all rejoice togeth­er. (RSV)

Another ver­sion of 1 Corinthians 12:26 trans­lates, “If one part suf­fers every part shares its suf­fer­ing.” What would it mean to share in the suf­fer­ing of our broth­ers and sis­ters of col­or who suf­fer from a racial­ized crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem? Racial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is a com­mit­ment at the heart of the gospel. If we say we belong to Christ, that mis­sion of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is ours too. What does racial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion mean now in the face of America’s racial divide over polic­ing and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem? Let’s get prac­ti­cal. If you have African Americans at your work­place or at your church, ask them to please talk to you about this, to tell you their sto­ries — then lis­ten. If you don’t have any black or oth­er mem­bers of col­or in your church, it’s time to ask why. Reach out — and ask your pas­tor to reach out — to black and Hispanic church­es in your com­mu­ni­ty or city. We must find safe and authen­tic ways to hear each oth­ers’ sto­ries, across the racial bound­aries of our church­es. Reach out sen­si­tive­ly to black par­ents at your chil­dren’s schools. Ask to hear their sto­ries. Talk to the black par­ents of your chil­dren’s class­mates and team­mates. Or maybe it’s time to real­ize not hav­ing chil­dren of col­or at your chil­dren’s school or on their teams is a big part of the prob­lem. Parents talk­ing to par­ents and hear­ing each oth­ers’ sto­ries may be the most impor­tant key to mov­ing for­ward in the church and in the nation. White peo­ple need to stop talk­ing so much, stop defend­ing the sys­tems that pro­tect and serve them, and stop say­ing “I’m not a racist.” If white peo­ple turn a blind eye to sys­tems that are racial­ly biased, we can’t be absolved from the sin of racism. Listen to the peo­ple the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem fails to serve and pro­tect; try to see the world as they do. Loving our neigh­bors means iden­ti­fy­ing with their suf­fer­ing, meet­ing them in it, and work­ing togeth­er to change it. And, for those of us who are par­ents, lov­ing our neigh­bors means lov­ing oth­er peo­ple’s kids as much as we love our own.

Jim Wallis is pres­i­dent of Sojourners. His book, The (Un)Common Good: How the Gospel Brings Hope to a World Divided, the updat­ed and revised paper­back ver­sion of On God’s Side, is avail­able now.

This sto­ry was first pub­lished in the Huffingtonpost​.com

Tens Of Thousands March On NYPD Headquarters To Protest Police Killings

Tens of thousands of protesters streamed out of New York City’s Washington Square Park on Saturday to protest the killings of unarmed black people by police officers, as part of the “Millions March NYC.

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Police Union To Mayor: Don’t Attend My Funeral

Mayor DeBlasio and commissioner Bill Braton
Mayor deBlasio and com­mis­sion­er Bill Braton

New York City’s police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, is urg­ing its mem­bers to ban Mayor Bill de Blasio from their funer­als, the lat­est episode in the ongo­ing clash between the may­or and the city’s law-enforce­ment pow­er structure.Officers are encour­aged to fill out a form on the union’s web­site titled “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” to request that nei­ther de Blasio nor Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito attend their funer­al, should they be killed in the line of duty.

The form reads:

I, _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, as a New York City police offi­cer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attend­ing my funer­al ser­vices in the event that I am killed in the line of duty. Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s con­sis­tent refusal to show police offi­cers the sup­port and respect they deserve, I believe that their atten­dance at the funer­al of a fall­en New York City police offi­cer is an insult to that offi­cer’s mem­o­ry and sacrifice.

Melissa Mark-Viverito
Melissa Mark-Viverito

For months, PBA pres­i­dent Patrick Lynch has com­plained about what he views as insuf­fi­cient sup­port from the may­or, par­tic­u­lar­ly after the July 17 death of Eric Garner, who died after NYPD offi­cers put him in a choke­hold. In the wake of the inci­dent, de Blasio recount­ed telling his 17-year-old bira­cial son, Dante, about the need to be care­ful around police offi­cers. Lynch accused de Blasio of “stir­ring the emo­tions of the street” and throw­ing offi­cers “under the bus.”

De Blasio and Mark-Viverito issued a joint state­ment call­ing the new PBA form “deeply disappointing.”

Incendiary rhetoric like this serves only to divide the city, and New Yorkers reject these tac­tics,” said the state­ment. “The may­or and the Speaker both know bet­ter than to think this inap­pro­pri­ate stunt rep­re­sents the views of the major­i­ty of police offi­cers and their families.”

Police Commissioner William Bratton has­n’t com­ment­ed on the controversy. 

Since tak­ing office, de Blasio has strug­gled to bal­ance sup­port­ing the NYPD with acknowl­edg­ing the dis­trust many

Lynch
Lynch

have when it comes to racial pro­fil­ing, exem­pli­fied by the con­tro­ver­sial “Stop and Frisk” policy.

There’s a dif­fer­ence between say­ing we should respect our offi­cers, which of course we should,” de Blasio said in response to crit­i­cism from Lynch this month, “ver­sus the real­i­ty that so many par­ents have felt that unfor­tu­nate­ly their child might con­front unfair treatment.”

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at http://​www​.the​at​lantic​.com/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​/​2​0​1​4​/​1​2​/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​t​o​-​d​e​-​b​l​a​s​i​o​-​d​o​n​t​-​a​t​t​e​n​d​-​m​y​-​f​u​n​e​r​a​l​/​3​8​3​7​34/

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

Union heads have every right to fight hard as hell to rep­re­sent their mem­bers, no one denies them that. It seem how­ev­er that Lynch and his mem­bers fun­da­men­tal­ly believe they are above the laws. It appears from his rhetoric he places the police depart­ment above the duly elect­ed Mayor of the city of New York , the city coun­cil pres­i­dent and more impor­tant­ly the diverse mosa­ic which is the world’s largest city.
Thuggery, strong-arm tac­tics, intim­i­da­tion, bul­ly­ing, dis­re­spect, are just a few of the tac­tics employed by Lynch on behalf of the rank and file mem­bers of the NYPD,or offi­cers who are ref­er­eed to as white badges. 
How does Lynch expect his mem­bers to per­form their func­tions in a hos­tile environment?
More impor­tant­ly how does the Union and it’s spokesper­son expect qual­i­fied sup­port for offi­cers when he unequiv­o­cal­ly sup­ports what are clear and egre­gious trans­gres­sions by his colleagues?
All Police offi­cers want to be appre­ci­at­ed , that goes with­out say­ing. The way to be accept­ed is to show empa­thy with those who are aggriev­ed by police action.
You are appre­ci­at­ed when you fess-up and ask for for­give­ness when you do wrong or make mis­takes. Even your most ardent crit­ic will have a hard time being bel­liger­ent (to bor­row a term you abuse, when you do mea-culpas.
Eight years of Rudolp Giuliani and Twelve of Bloomberg has done sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the men­tal­i­ty of NYPD cops. This Mayor is exact­ly on the right course in stand­ing with the cit­i­zens of new York when they are wronged and stand­ing with cops when they are right.
That is exact­ly the cor­rect approach for any Mayor>
This page salutes Mayor deBlasio for the fair and equi­table way he has han­dled those func­tions since he became may­or. NYPD cops can­not be above the laws , the soon­er they real­ize that the bet­ter. For years city Hall has cod­dled them even as they abuse and kill cit­i­zens unjust­ly. It is time for them to devel­op a dif­fer­ent men­tal­i­ty , one which rec­og­nizes the basic and fun­da­men­tal rights cit­i­zens have to life and liberty.
Saying cops do not go out to kill cit­i­zens is malarkey. The fact is, peo­ple are being killed in front our very eyes, whether you went out to do it is imma­te­r­i­al. It is cold com­fort to the fam­i­lies left behind to grieve.
It can­not be that cops are judge , jury , end exe­cu­tion­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly when in lit­er­al­ly all cas­es the cit­i­zens killed, lose their lives for minor infrac­tions, like alleged­ly sell­ing loose cigarettes. 
The sale of loose cig­a­rettes should­n’t even be an arrest-able offence.
Yet Eric Garner is dead.
Lynch being the crass moron he is blamed the dead Garner for his own death. This creep needs to know he was not elect­ed to Govern the city, Mayor deBlazio was.

Just as Anthony Baez was killed because his foot­ball hit a squad car belong­ing to the res­i­dents of the city of New York.
This is where Lynch should direct his ener­gies , it will most cer­tain­ly pay big­ger div­i­dends for his offi­cers and all New Yorkers.