Cops stuck playing bail to the chief
IN THEIR 20 combined years at City Hall, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg routinely protected the police from political attacks and hucksters. Even when an officer was involved in questionable conduct, their first instinct was to remind New Yorkers that cops, like everybody else, are presumed innocent.
In his first months in office, Mayor de Blasio is reversing that relationship. Already, the NYPD has rescued him twice from serious controversies, with top cop Bill Bratton forced to use his credibility to protect the mayor from embarrassment and charges of hypocrisy.
It is a curious turnabout, not least because de Blasio based much of his campaign on an antipolice agenda. He attacked stopandfrisk as racial profiling, and proclaimed that, under his administration, “we will not break the law to enforce the law.”
It’s a catchy phrase, but de Blasio’s actions in two remarkable incidents are mocking the promise of evenhandedness.
The first involved the sudden release of a de Blasio supporter from jail following a latenight mayoral call to the NYPD. Amid charges of special treatment, de Blasio defended himself but a strangelysilent Bratton ducked the contro versy for as long as he could.
It wasn’t until a week after the Feb. 10 phone call became public that Bratton finally said he had “no problem” with his boss.
“He can call anybody he wants, any time he wants,” the commissioner added, with the mayor standing beside him.
The second rescue followed the WCBS video showing de Blasio’s policedriven SUV speeding and running two stop signs while he sat in the front seat. That was just two days after the mayor released his “Vision Zero” plan for cutting traffic deaths, where he declared that “it’s about each of us taking greater responsibility every time we get behind the wheel or step out on the street.”
For added measure, The Post photographed him jaywalking.
Just as the phone call on behalf of his supporter did, the video and photo sparked charges that de Blasio was guilty of saying one thing and doing another. So once again, he called 911 for a lifeline.
After City Hall stiffarmed all questions, de Blasio met with Bratton Friday, and the commissioner later told reporters the speeding case was closed.
“In terms of what I saw in that video, [it] did not raise significant concerns for me,” Bratton said. “We are not going to be questioning those officers.”
Finally, on Monday, de Blasio himself said “no one’s above the law,” but again kicked the can back to the cops. “I don’t tell the NYPD how to do their work when it comes to protecting me. They’re the experts,” he said.
The incidents might help de Blasio and Bratton bond, but both are suffering knocks to their reputations. Bratton had a reluctant, prisonerofwar look as he defended the mayor, and once dodged reporters’ questions by jumping into a waiting car and closing the door.
The mayor looks even worse. His decision to use the Police Department he denounced as a character witness makes him appear more opportunistic than principled, with even liberal Democrat Comptrol ler Scott Stringer saying the call to the police was “problematic.”
And de Blasio’s commitment to street safety seems insincere when his own behavior is the kind he calls reckless in others. His tendency to lecture in imperious tones doesn’t help.
It is still early in the term, and the missteps may be mere footnotes in time. But for now, they are defining de Blasio’s principles and management style in unflattering ways.
The mayor, sensing the danger of a hardening narrative, criticized reporters Monday for their interest in the two stories. He said he wants to talk about things “that fundamentally affect people’s lives,” but that “too much of the time, the debate veers away into, you know, sideshows.”
Ah, yes, blame the media. That always works.