This might be the time to pee on the sidewalk in NYC if you ever wanted to. The NYPD is on an undeclared & illegal work stoppage with ticketing down 94% for public drinking, peeing, & other minor offenses. The coast is still not clear for shoplifters so keep your sticky fingers off the goods.
The police Benevolent Association has mandated two patrol cars must respond to all police calls so this means slower response times to non-emergencies like burglaries or car crashes without injuries–or whatever in their petulant state cops deem non-emergency.
One cop said he’s not writing tickets because he ‘won’t stand there & let someone shoot him or hit him in the head with an ax.’ Another said, āIām concerned about my safety. I want to go home to my wife & kids.ā What a contrast to their reckless disregard for the lives & human rights of Black teens. File those complaints under “Cry me a River.”
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is feeling emboldened enough to hit the media trail. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” he claimed the NYPD is suffering low morale & that cops across the country “feel under attack,” including from the government. All that big-assed military equipment & no one to shoot without a civil rights movement in your face!
Bratton addressed the conflict as if were between the NYPD & Mayor de Blasio. That’s where the cops are focusing their fury when the real tension is between the NYPD & Black community & its supporters. Cops want their old impunity back. But police don’t run NYC or any other city in the world. They’re guns for hire by the political forces that do control things.
It’s a dangerous course to let the cops run wild & call the shots. And it’s a danger mostly to the emerging civil rights movement. The only way to defend the right of public protest & support the Black community in defense of their children is to make the new movement massive & mighty & intransigent. The police suffer no threat whatsoever to their lives or safety from this historic movement for social justice. But it is the end of the line for their reign of terror in the Black community.