WE REALLY BLUE IT
Probe hammers NYPD, & Blaz regrets many failures handling Floyd protests
Mayor de Blasio on Friday admits he and the NYPD made mistakes in response to George Floyd protests in the spring.
In a scathing report issued Friday by New York City’s Department of Investigation, the NYPD was admonished for lacking a “clearly defined strategy” in its handling of citywide protests over the death of George Floyd, which fanned flames of anger and unrest for weeks.
The department’s lack of preparation “contributed to problems that then escalated tensions” as thousands took to the streets, the 111-page probe said.
“The NYPD made a number of key errors that escalated tensions and certainly contributed to the perception that the department was suppressing rather than facilitating lawful First Amendment assembly and expression,” DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett said after the report was released.
“Mass arrests, baton and pepper spray use and other tactics reflected a failure to calibrate an appropriate balance between valid public safety and officer safety interest and the rights of protesters to assemble and express their views.”
In a recorded statement posted on Twitter, Mayor de Blasio expressed regret about the city’s handling of the situation.
“I’m reflecting on what happened in May and June, and I look back with remorse. I wish I had done better,” de Blasio said. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better.”
“I didn’t do better,” the mayor said. “And I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons. And I want our police department to do better, and I’m going to insist upon that.”
The NYPD acknowledged that “the size, multiplicity and intensity of protests” took them off guard and blamed weaknesses in their strategy on “the initial deployment of insufficient officers,” the report revealed.
But the early under-deployment “may have contributed to problems that then escalated tensions even on ensuing days when staffing was more appropriate,” investigators said.
De Blasio said that instead of focusing on punishing those responsible for the NYPD’s failures, the city would focus on making changes.
“I regret that I didn’t figure out how to lead differently. I regret that I didn’t figure out how to speak to the city differently and better,” he said Friday. “But I really believe our police leadership and our police officers were trying to deal with an incredibly difficult, complex situation, and trying to make sure that no one died … So, no, I do not regret trying to speak to that.”
But Blasioi also said police leaders who don’t agree with the report should consider leaving the department.
While the DOI spoke to NYPD brass during its investigation, Commissioner Garrett noted that her team did not interview former NYPD Chief of Patrol Fausto Pichardo, who was in charge of officer deployments during the heaviest days of the George Floyd protests.
Pichardo resigned in October after week of with Blasio over the handling of the protests, sources said. The mayor constantly called and texted Pichardo, to the point where he felt he was being treated as a whipping post, the sources claim.
Thousands of people took to the streets in outrage over Floyd’s death, sparking caught-on-camera clashes between protesters and police, including where a cop shoved a woman near the Barclays Center, giving her a concussion.
In the following days, officers in riot gear fought and arrested hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom looted businesses in Manhattan and the Bronx.
The NYPD made matters worse by failing to coordinate with its own Community Affairs Bureau, which could have talked with protest leaders to tamp down violence, the DOI report said.
Officers’ failure to wear masks during the protests, covering up of badge numbers and the use of kettling tactics also didn’t help, the report claimed.
“The documented lack of mask compliance by police officers may seem like a small matter compared to concerns about baton use,” the report noted. “However, both the documented lack of compliance and the apparent dismissal of it by senior NYPD officials, both at the time and subsequently, was exactly the wrong message from officers of an institution charged with protecting public safety during a pandemic.”
Cops who covered their shields and went maskless will be disciplined, the mayor said Friday.
The report also called out de Blasio for mixed messages from his administration about curfews — which they said would not be enforced among peaceful protesters.
“These statements were unhelpful on multiple levels,” the report found. “The ostensible purpose of the curfew was to clear the streets of law-abiding persons in order to allow police resources to be focused on looters or those intent on violence or property destruction. Telling the public that peaceful protests could continue past the curfew, without consequence, undermined this goal considerably.”
The DOI recommended that the police department create its own protest response unit to coordinate with the Community Affairs Bureau to handle large protests.
If the department feels that cops in riot gear are required, they should be detailed away from protesters so they don’t anger marchers and should be called in only if necessary, the DOI said.
“Fair and effective policing is vital to public safety and the key ingredient in that is public confidence that the police are subject to robust oversight,” Garrett said. “That informed our ultimate recommendation that the mayor and the City Council consider consolidating existing police oversight functions into a single agency headed by an independent board.
“We urge the NYPD to accept the necessity and the benefits of external oversight,” she said.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said, ”(The report) presents 20 logical and thoughtful recommendations that I intend to incorporate into our future policy and training.”
Backlash against the NYPD and de Blasio over the report’s findings was swift and severe from all sides of the political spectrum.
“This report confirms that the shocking violence the NYPD employed during the George Floyd protests was directly traceable to the leadership failures of Mayor de Blasio, Police Commissioner Shea and other police leaders,” the Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a joint statement.
The report confirms what police officers knew: “Our city leaders sent us out with no plan,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said.