Blaz says zip
Mum on speeding & stop-sign running
I will attempt the most transparency possible in every public endeavor
MAYOR DE BLASIO blew off tough questions Friday about as fast as he blew past the speed limit.
Just hours after promising to respond to revelations his chauffeured SUV broke a series of traffic laws, de Blasio walked out of a City Hall news conference Friday without doing just that.
The mayor read a brief statement declaring his “great respect” for the “training and protocols” of his NYPD security detail and professing that he was “committed, obviously, to traffic safety.”
He said Police Commissioner Bill Bratton “addressed the topic of my security detail earlier today. I’m very comfortable with what Commissioner Bratton said and I refer you to his comments.”
With that, de Blasio left the podium, ignoring reporters shouting questions at him as he walked out of the City Hall Blue Room.
And so what began as a simple story about the mayor’s motorcade violating the rules of the road turned into a self-inflicted crisis about openness at City Hall.
This was, after all, a mayor who once declared, “I will attempt the most transparency possible in every public endeavor.”
And Friday morning, outside his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, de Blasio told reporters, “We’ll have a press conference later today. You can ask all the questions you want.”
Even de Blasio’s former spokeswoman Lis Smith chided him Friday.
“Take the questions and all of them now. Put the issue to bed. Not rocket science,” she tweeted minutes after his press conference.
It is the second controversy involving de Blasio and the NYPD in two weeks. He was criticized for calling an NYPD deputy chief after a political supporter, Bishop Orlando Findlayter, was arrested on Feb. 10. The new controversy began Thursday when a WCBS/Channel 2 news crew captured the mayor’s NYPD-driven SUV — with de Blasio riding shotgun — blowing past stop signs and driving faster than the speed limit just
— Bill de Blasio We’ll have a press conference later today. You can ask all the questions you want.
two days after he announced a sweeping crackdown on dangerous driving.
Friday morning, de Blasio refused to take questions from reporters outside his home, and a short time later he jaywalked through an intersection, oblivious to a red “DON’T WALK” signal as he chatted on his cell phone, surrounded by his security detail.
His NYPD drivers then thwarted the Daily News from tailing his motorcade. His black SUV headed off when a traffic light turned green — but a second NYPD vehicle did not move, blocking The News’ car. When the second NYPD vehicle finally moved, the mayor’s SUV was out of sight.
One person who was taking questions was Bratton, who met with reporters after huddling with de Blasio Friday morning at City Hall.
Bratton said the mayor’s security detail followed procedures when it was caught by Channel 2 ignoring two stop signs and traveling at least 40 mph in a 30-mph zone, and pushing 60 in a 45-mph zone.
It’s unclear why the cops felt the need to blow through the stop signs.
Bratton said the cops protecting the mayor were allowed to make decisions on the fly, and he wouldn’t question them.
“There will be no followup of what occurred yesterday. The vehicles moved continually throughout the city. In terms of what I saw in that video, (it) did not raise significant
concerns for me. We are not going to be questioning those officers as to the decisions they made,” Bratton said.
“They make these decisions all the time, every day, as they are attempting to provide security.”
In the late afternoon, de Blasio took questions at City Hall about a deal reguarding the soon-to-beshuttered Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn.
When a reporter tried to press him about his traffic violations, de Blasio chided, “We’re talking about a major moment in the history of health care in this city. I think some people are interested in that.”
After 55 minutes, de Blasio then read his seven-sentence statement and left.