Don’t look back on Dante talk – Blaz

MAYOR DE BLASIO said Wednesday he’s looking forward, not backward, on police-community relations — refusing to analyze whether he changed his tone on cops in a speech he gave on Staten Island this week.

De Blasio ducked questions about whether he talks differently about police to his 17-year-old son Dante (with him, below) and also avoided saying whether he thought the police had changed since the death of Eric Garner in a police chokehold.

De Blasio sniped at reporters, saying testily, “I know the media, with all due respect, likes to look backwards a lot. I think the people want to look forward.”

In December, after a Staten Island grand jury refused to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Garner’s death, de Blasio said: “I’ve had to worry over the years: Is Dante safe?”

Soon after, many members of the NYPD turned their backs on the mayor at the funerals of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

On Tuesday, speaking at the same church where he made his comments about Dante, the mayor said “All lives matter ... black lives matter ... blue lives matter.”

De Blasio refused to discuss why he chose to add “blue lives matter” — a rallying cry for police after the deaths of Ramos and Liu — to his speech. “I’m not really interested, respectfully, in retrospective questions,” he said.