As much I'd like to offer a magic solution that would make everyone in NYC join hands and sing Kumbaya, that's not why I'm writing today. All I want to do today is voice my opinion. It's an opinion I know many of you will a disagree with, and I'd lying if I told you that my feet weren't firmly planted on one side of this divide. However, I'm hoping that if I present my case is a way the respects the feelings of those on both sides of the issue, I can build a bridge between at least some of the disagreeing parties who happen to read this.
While I'd like to do my best to keep emotion out of my discussion, I'm afraid I'm going to have to start with the most emotionally charged comment I've heard over the past week.
“There’s blood on many hands tonight. Those that incited violence on the streets under the guise of protest that tried to tear down what NYPD officers did every day. We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated. That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the office of the mayor.” - Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick LynchOK, so now we've reached the point where I'm forced to shed any remaining veil of impartiality and admit that I completely disagree with the statement above. I've know I've probably lost half my audience with the last sentence, but I implore anyone who disagrees with me to keep reading just a little bit more, because the rest of this post is directed at you.
Assuming you agree with the sentiment of Mr. Lynch's statement above, can we at least admit that he was engaging in a bit of hyperbole when he said "The blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the office of the mayor"? I don't think you can interpret "The blood on the hands starts" as anything other than a phrase trying to point to the person most responsible for the tragic murder of those police officers. The statement above ( whether Lynch actually meant it or not ) is basically saying that Mayor de Blasio is more culpable than anyone else for the deaths of those two police officers. Considering that Ismaaiyl Brinsley drove from Maryland to NYC and executed two NYPD officers, it's clear that the the blood on the hands starts with Brinsley, not Mayor de Blasio.
Now, I understand that despite the hyperbolic nature of Mr. Lynch's statement, the general sentiment expressed in his statement ( and felt by many in NYC ) is that the protests about Eric Garner and Mayor de Blasio's statements about the subject made it more likely that a deranged person like Brinsley might try to harm an NYPD officer.
I can understand that sentiment, and I'm even willing to admit that protests and comments about the Eric Garner situation certainly did make things slightly dangerous for the NYPD than if everyone had just kept quite about.
However, you know what would have made things even safer for the NYPD than people keeping quite about the Eric Garner situation?
Things would have been a whole lot safer for the NYPD if Eric Garner has not died while being restrained NYPD officers.
That's really the elephant in the room here. Anyone who blames the protesters or de Blasio for the murders of the NYPD officers is conveniently forgetting that there would have been no protests and no comments from de Blasio if Eric Garner had lived.
The NYPD does a great job and all New Yorkers should be proud of the department as an entity. However just because the NYPD does noble work and does a great job on the whole, doesn't mean that we should make a blanket assumption that all members of the NYPD are great police officers.
No organization can reach its full potential unless it is willing to admit its weaknesses and correct them. Look, anyone who knows me knows that I love the Jets and root for them no matter how badly they play. However, even I can admit that Geno Smith sucks, is a detriment to the team, and the team would be better off if they got rid of him.
Well, even those who love the NYPD most should be willing to admit that there are bad cops who no longer deserve to wear an NYPD badge. In fact, those who love the NYPD should want to take sub-par cops off the force, because the NYPD will be better, and all NewYorkers will be safer if cops who cannot meet the high standards of the NYPD are replaced by those who can meet those standards.
In a way, police unions reminds me of teachers unions. While I firmly support teachers unions in general and think that teachers are drastically underpaid, it's clear to me that teachers unions have a tendency to close ranks and reflexively protect the interests of the worst teachers, just like police unions close ranks and protect the interests of the worst cops. I think the teachers unions believe it is a moral imperative to protect the interests of even the worst teachers because teaching is such a noble profession. Well, teaching is a noble profession, and because is it, the teachers unions should help the teaching profession to be as good as it can be allowing policies that reward great teachers and eliminate bad teachers.
The same sort of thinking should apply to the NYPD, and police departments in general across the country. I don't know anything about the NYPD officers who were involved in the incident that led to Eric Garner's death. I have no idea what they were thinking that day, so I won't make any assumptions. However, I don't think anyone can look at the Eric Garner situation and say things went as well as they could. I don't think any of the cops involved in the incident wanted to be involved in an incident that day that led to an unarmed man's death. The fact that an unarmed man did die that day means that something went terribly wrong and at least some of the people involved should be held accountable.
It's at this point that I'm sure some of you are saying "If Eric Garner had not resisted arrest, this never would have happened." While that's certainly true, it's also unquestionably true that most arrests of unarmed people resisting arrest do not result in the death of the resisting person. So, if somebody does die in such a situation, it's probably because somebody making the arrest made a big mistake.
I'm not going to speculate on what that mistake was or who was most to blame, but I do think these questions are something that needed to be investigated in a trial. The fact that no indictment was handed down means we may never get to the bottom of this. The NYPD, and the police union seem to be fine with that, but I would hope that those who love and care about the NYPD would want to get to the bottom of this incident. If it becomes standard operating procedure to not have a trial when an unarmed person dies at the hands of the cops, sub-par cops who bring down the rest of the NYPD will feel emboldened to continue practices that put both the citizens of NYC and the NYPD in danger. That's not good for the city, and it's not good for the NYPD.
The bottom line is, all New Yorkers should want the NYPD to do the best job it can, for the sake of both the citizens of New York and the NYPD itself. Asking for some accountability and investigation when the NYPD is involved in the death of an unarmed man is not anti-cop, it's pro-cop. Anything that will make the NYPD better and build trust between the NYPD and the community it serves is pro-cop.
Anyway, while I no longer live in New York, I'll always be a New Yorker, so I hope the city I love can work through this and have a happy and safe holiday season.
Rich
