In 1992, more than 4,000 off-duty NYPD cops stormed City Hall, blocked Brklyn Bridge, beat up reporters. No arrests. http://t.co/MFKrPmqDta
— Mister Bunny (@AskMisterBunny) December 21, 2014
From the NYTimes archives:
September 17, 1992 — Thousands of off-duty police officers thronged around City Hall yesterday, swarming through police barricades to rally on the steps of the hall and blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge for nearly an hour in the most unruly and angry police demonstration in recent memory.
The 300 uniformed officers who were supposed to control the crowd did little or nothing to stop the protesters from jumping barricades, tramping on automobiles, mobbing the steps of City Hall or taking over the bridge. In some cases, the on-duty officers encouraged the protesters.
While the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association had called the rally to protest Mayor David N. Dinkins’s proposal to create an independent civilian agency that would look into police misconduct, the huge turnout — estimated by the Police Department at 10,000 protesters — and the harsh emotional pitch reflected widespread anger among rank-and-file officers toward the Mayor for his handling of riots against the police in Washington Heights last July, his refusal to give them semiautomatic weapons and his appointment of an outside panel to investigate corruption…
Mayor Dinkins, who was not at City Hall during the demonstration, denounced the protest as “bordering on hooliganism” and said he held the P.B.A. president, Phil Caruso, responsible for what happened. He accused Mr. Caruso of inciting his members’ passions and suggested the union leader was motivated in part by contract negotiations.
The Mayor also assailed Rudolph W. Giuliani, the probable Republican mayoral candidate, who spoke out against the Mayor at the union rally. Mr. Dinkins said Mr. Giuliani had egged on the protest irresponsibly for political reasons. “He’s clearly, clearly an opportunist,” Mr. Dinkins said. “He’s seizing upon a fragile circumstance in our city for his own political gain.” …
Hey, from Guiliani’s perspective, the riot worked.
@billmon1 @AskMisterBunny The force was much whiter then. I'd be surprised if they could pull a similar stunt today.
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 21, 2014
goblue72
Thugs in uniforms with badges and guns. You can’t have a police state without the police.
ruemara
I watched white cops burn this genteel, milquetoast, barely tan first Black Mayor of NYC in effigy. I heard them using slurs and acting like dangerous animals. And Rudy Giuliani grinning, nodding and booking when it really restarted to get out of hand. I wasn’t even 16 and the fact that cops could be like this flew in the face of all I believed. I have never, ever been able to look at Giuliani without thinking of that day. Sometimes, I think why Rudy ever became mayor was the hope for some white people that he would help the police keep browns in their place.
Jeffro
OT but please pass the popcorn: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rubio-rand-paul-cuba-obama-cheerleader
OMG this is gonna be great…
Judge Crater
People have forgotten the heavy-handed tactics of Giuliani – he made life hell for many New Yorkers. I remember he had the cops confiscate the cars of poor people who couldn’t pay their parking tickets. Cars worth a couple of thousand dollars that the owners depended on for work. What a fascist!
Baud
@ruemara:
Hard to believe a Republican could get elected into office by sticking it to brown people.
srv
Mandalay
@Jeffro:
Indeed. Rubio has picked up the gun, pointed it carefully at his foot, and squeezed the trigger…
If it’s gonna be open war between Paul and Rubio over who is most incompetent then bet on Rubio. He is possibly the dumbest fucker in the Senate, and that bar is set really low.
BGinCHI
Has the NYC Police Chief made any public comments? He should be at the center of this as well.
Howard Beale IV
Too bad Mohammed Salameh and crew didn’t target this protest-they would have done the world a whole lot of favors.
Marc
@ruemara:
The same reason any Republican has been elected to any office since 1980.
Mike in NC
Mayor Giuliani clearly used Benito Mussolini as his role model. Surprised that he didn’t design a spiffy black uniform to wear, complete with shiny jackboots.
A pity, too, that he hasn’t announced another run for president in 2016.
raven
@BGinCHI:
Just Some Fuckhead
@raven: Are they trained professionals or hormonal teenage girls? How does one of the premier cities in the world end up with a 35,000 Heathers patrolling the streets?
Elizabelle
@raven: linky?
El Caganer
“But they’ll do what we expect of them, protect the city. It’s what cops do.”
So that’s what they do. Good to know.
Howard Beale IV
So sayeth the felon (conspiracy, tax fraud and making false statements).
David Koch
ESPN has been showing a 30 for 30 documentary on the police riots of 1970s
http://i.imgur.com/LSlzvjy.jpg
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11935642
scav
It does rather simplify matters to have it explicitly spelled out just who is it in this society (the chosen few, this happy band of brothers) that are allowed to actively mourn their fallen, command respect for their grief and not only see conspiracies against them everywhere, but insist on measures being taken to correct their grievances. Everyone else? Shut up and back of the line.
eric
@Mike in NC: Presidents get criticized by the main stream media sometimes. And the pay cut isn’t worth it.
David Koch
I mean, the fucking NYPD has always been this way. What sparked the Stonewall riots was police thuggery.
JDM
I’d be surprised if they could pull a similar stunt today.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.
David Koch
@eric: you would think the pull of being the first female president would pull Ghoulianni into the ring.
http://www.impiousdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/askrudy.jpg (IOKIYAR)
Cacti
@Howard Beale IV:
Yes, I can’t help but notice that any time someone quotes Bernie Kerik, they don’t introduce him as “disgraced former New York Police Commissioner” or “former New York Police Commissioner and 8-time convicted felon”.
I’m sure I don’t know why.
David Koch
From that rant, it sounds like they’re planning to do another police riot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: Excellent.
The opportunities for Thunder Dome action are obvious here.
PurpleGirl
This is the rally/riot where the cops passed around a cartoon that depicted Mayor Dinkins as a restroom attendant. RG didn’t say a word then about and I don’t believe he ever said anything about it. Way to respect your ultimate boss. The lot of them should have been fired for insubordination.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: Well, isn’t it obvious?
No melanin surplus.
Cacti
Prior to the 9/11 PR boost that the NYPD received, they were mostly in the news for the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo incidents.
When haven’t they been racist and dirty?
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Some Fuckhead: It seems like the only professionals associated in any way with the NYPD are the cast of “Law and Order”.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: “A small man in search of a balcony” — Jimmy Breslin, commening on Rudy Giuliani
One deals with Mussolini wannabees the way the Italians dealt with the original.
drkrick
@David Koch:
He hadn’t heard that the guy had already killed himself?
El Caganer
@Cacti: Maybe it has something to do with the type of media who like to quote him.
Howard Beale IV
@Cacti: At least Ollie North get off through the appeal process. Kerik (and others that Fox promotes) didn’t.
ruemara
@Baud: Tax cuts and a boot on the neck of the unworthy, forever. but remember, I wasn’t even 16 and didn’t know what a Republican was.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I looked and I can’t your email address. :-( I’m pretty sure we put mine into your phone (my real name also starts with an M and it’s a Yahoo address, if that helps), or you can send an email via my blog linked here.
We put a harness on Charlotte and she’s not thrilled, but she’s not completely hating life. Treats, petting, toys and praise made her a little more resigned to it.
Mike in NC
We like the sitcom “Brooklyn Nine Nine”. In one episode, the police captain played by Andre Brauer recalled the time in the 70s when he was one of the first African-American detectives In the NYPD.
In the flashback, he walks into the squad room where all the white male cops are sitting around talking and laughing, and suddenly there’s dead silence. He finally says, “Good morning, I’m Ray Holt”. One of the detectives asks, “Are you here to turn yourself in?”.
David Koch
@Mike in NC: South Park took up the issue of racist cops and Ferguson
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/a13re4/a-black-guy-walked-into-the-police-station
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
By putting them in charge for a few decades until they’re thrown out of power by a foreign invasion?
mainmati
@Mandalay: Better yet, the Turtle is going to be “ruling” over a riotous menagerie of peacock Senators: Rubio, Rand Paul, the Cruz Machine, Mike Lee, the genuine loony Cotton, the openly corrupt Thillis – and those are just the new guys. Then you have the traditional barons: Hatch, Cornyn, Grampa Walnuts, etc. who have their own hobby horses. Yeah, popcorn alright. Meanwhile, will anything actually get done for the next 2 years? Not a chance, except maybe other Cromnibuses.
BBA
To this day, the NYPD still sees Frank Serpico as a traitor, and all he did was blow the whistle on cops taking bribes.
Botsplainer
Oooh – we have a new panelist on Meet the Press – John Nolte of Breitbart.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44145_Chuck_Todd_Has_a_New_Meet_the_Press_Panelist-_Breitbart_News_Crackpot_John_Nolte
Does anybody know a deranged violent person that we can point in the direction of Chuck Todd’s house?
ruemara
@Botsplainer: Isn’t that THE deranged violent person right there in studio?
Bonnie
@BBA: I don’t believe any thing has changed since Serpico. But, people who haven’t read the book or seen the movie really should do one or the other. I think it is the same with most large police departments even today.
JDM
@srv: Joe Friday: We’ll always have incidents like this because we have one big problem in selecting police officers.
Chief: What’s that?
Friday: We have to recruit from the human race.
Dragnet had an episode where Joe and Bill went around doing background interviews of prospective officers, and drummed one out before he started due to his past as a bad cop. Now that I can’t see happening today (if it ever really did). They wouldn’t spend the time, and if they found a guy like that, they’d hire him in a second and probably ask if he had any buddies who wanted to join too.
Tree With Water
Where have you gone, Lenny Briscoe? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you…
Corner Stone
This BUF-OAK game just got really interesting.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water: Ooo-ooo-ooo
PeorgieTirebiter
I’d like to see the NFL player’s union weigh in with some threats and demands of their own. Let the people choose between protecting rogue cops and the play-offs.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So has Fox started cheering for the Police union yet?
wenchacha
I have missed certain years of American history. The college I attended in the late 70s was in the middle of nowhere. I never read a newspaper or saw the network evening news. Since that time, the Church Commission has finally revealed itself to me, thanks to our “torture is not torture” prez. The name had been mentioned before this, and all I knew was that Frank Church was a member of Congress, and well-respected after his death.
Now there’s this police riot, and I guess I had two kids under the age of four, and some of those years are a vague misty fog in my head. This, even when I have been following political stuff, casually but steadily over most of my adult years. We need journalists and historians telling these stories, at least an HBO documentary or Frontline treatment.
Small wonder our citizenry are drowning in misinformation, if any at all.
Tree With Water
@PeorgieTirebiter: Roger Goodell and the NFL’s “Hut, 2,3,4, Authority Forevermore!” ownership groups are in quite the bind over the cop’s unions vs. players, aren’t they? You just know The Shield would love to endorse the cops and damn the players, but they simply do not dare. Heh-heh.
Tommy
@wenchacha:
So have I. I went to college in the late 80s. A state school. But in the middle of nowhere. I went there and got taught the world around me was so “nice” if not easy. Then I went to live other places and learned the world isn’t easy. The world is a complex place.
SRW1
@Botsplainer:
Good F*n Lord. How low can MTP stoop?
At long last, Mr Todd, do you have no sense of legacy? None at all?
sharl
@JDM:
Funny – not ha-hah funny – you should mention this:
Baud
@Tommy:
The capital of Louisiana isn’t NYC, but I wouldn’t call it the middle of nowhere.
Violet
@Botsplainer:
How are the MTP ratings? Last I heard they were worse than when Dancin’ Dave was hosting. The deranged violent person might not be necessary if the toupeed groundhog can’t improve his ratings.
Villago Delenda Est
@drkrick: Why let the facts get in the way of righteous vengeance?
Tommy
@sharl: That has been said. He killed that child. And IMHO two words need to be used when talking about this. Child. Killed.Sure things might be FUBAR in our nation. You can choke out and kill a person. But this was a darn kid.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: Shades of Network!
Tommy
@Baud: Grad school in Baton Rouge. Undergrad, Macomb, IL. Directional school. Western Illinois University. I wouldn’t change it for a second. Got a good education there. But it was in the middle of nowhere.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer: If this were 1935, Chuckles the Toddler would have no problem having Julius Streicher on his program, methinks.
Baud
@Tommy:
Gotcha. I thought LSU was your undergrad.
raven
@Baud: Forgottonia Illinois
http://www.forgottonia.org/
Just Some Fuckhead
@Villago Delenda Est: Chuck Toad is no fool. He knows he’s going to crash and burn doing MTP. He’s auditioning for a Fox network show now.
Tommy
@Baud: I am sure I come off that way. LSU homer. But I am also a pretty proud Western Illinois guy. Go Leathernecks.
RedDirtGirl
@Villago Delenda Est:
I had a sticker with a Breslin quote that said:
New York is a mean city. It needs a mean mayor.
Baud
@raven:
Thanks. Although I’m sure I’ll forget all about it tomorrow.
raven
@Baud: God we used to have fun over on the Big River!
Darkrose
@Villago Delenda Est: And a show that I’m not sure I can watch right now: Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
mdblanche
@Villago Delenda Est: You aren’t suggesting David Gregory might become the first instance of a man killed because he had lousy ratings, are you?
? Martin
@drkrick:
I think he was referring to ‘Democrats’.
etaoin
@BGinCHI: There isn’t a police chief, precisely; there’s the police commissioner and a bunch of other deputy commissioners, chiefs of patrol, etc.
Corner Stone
@? Martin: I’m still wondering who the “wartime” opponents will be, in his vernacular.
Corner Stone
Not sure what the big deal about Michael Sam would be. These guys hug each other to the ground every play!
sidhra
History has yet to tell of the oppressed Police.
sharl
@mdblanche:
This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.
Damn what a great dark comedy that was, though some times it looks more like a predictive documentary created by a clairvoyant.
Steeplejack
For anyone who gets the Eurotrash micro-channel MHz on their cable system, I will once again recommend the excellent Italian crime series Inspector Montalbano, which is getting a marathon this week: episodes (in order) at 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. EST every night (repeated at midnight and 2:00 a.m.). Great scenery (Sicily), good acting and better than average scripts. And good food! The first episode is on now.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@sidhra:
But don’t you know, Police are one of the most oppressed and downtrodden groups in America, just behind White Christian Conservatives!
raven
@Steeplejack: We just finished season 2 of Peaky Blinders on Nextflix, pretty good.
Mike J
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: Peanuts! Peanuts!
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Mike J:
Don’t you hear that man’s voice? He’s screaming out for justice! He’s screaming out against his oppression!
? Martin
@Corner Stone: Given that they’re all seeking reasons to blame deBlasio, Obama, and Sharpton, I think ‘Democrats’ is the intended target.
Steeplejack
@raven:
That’s in my queue, haven’t gotten to it yet.
raven
@Steeplejack: Post WWI Birmingham gangsters with contemporary music.
nellcote
Has anyone mentioned the police unions and NYC have been in contract talks for years and now they’re going to arbritration?
nellcote
Rudy, inciting a riot in 1992
One of my favorite internet writers called Lower Manhattanite wrote about the riot in 2007. A sample:
“Cops carried signs that said “Dump the Washroom Attendant,” “Mayor, have you hugged your dealer today” and “Dinkins, We Know Your True-Color–Yellow Bellied.” Drawings on their homemade posters depicted the mayor in a ’60s Afro with giant lips, or engaged in kinky sex acts. They broke through police barricades and stormed the steps of City Hall, cheering “Take the Hall!” and banging on windows… They chanted “Rudy, Rudy,” in thunderous rhythm, as he worked his way through the nearly all-white mob, beaming, backslapping, posing for photos, pumping his fist. WCBC-TV camerman John Haygood was called a nigger. Una Clarke, a city councilwoman from Brooklyn, was stopped by an off-duty copy with a beer in his hand who said to his sidekick: “This n*gger says she’s a member of the City Council.”
The Una Clarke part of the story I remember as if it was yesterday. She spoke about it on the news that night. She was shaken. You see, she wasn’t merely stopped by drunken, racist officers. She was stopped from entering City Hall by drunken, racist officers. They had no problem with calling an elected member of New York City government a n*gger to her face and treating her as if it were the Jim Crow South, circa 1949.
…So, it was a lot deeper than Rudy just using “a naughty word”. It was him effectively playing a big part in what was in essence a one-day coup d’ etat, where the “military” (The NYPD) let it be known that they were not beholden to the wishes of the present government, and had thrown their allegiance behind an unelected, rabble-rousing demagogue. And they were gonna make anyone who looked like “the government” (Mayor Dinkins) pay…big time
That’s why that day will always stand out in stark, fucking relief for me, and several million other New Yorkers. It was a day that Black folks collectively gulped as we realized that the NYPD would not answer to the government. It made us all walk a little more carefully, with a flinch, and a glance over the shoulder—at the cops, and especially Rudy….
http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2007/07/ohokay-i-will-pick-your-lotto-numbers_25.html
? Martin
@efgoldman: Probably, but not really. If you go after Democrats you get that subset, and why not go after sympathizers as well? They didn’t hold back on Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, after all.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Manhattan is quite Democratic and Brooklyn is increasingly moving that way. If the NYPD chooses to go to war, I fully expect them to overreach and misread the public. It’s simply not 1992 any longer. I lived there back then. It’s a different enough city to matter. Not as different as it ought to be, but different enough.
SWMBO
@nellcote: Do you think De Blasio should invoke St. Ronbo the Macho?
http://avstop.com/news/strike1.html
Jeffro
@Mandalay: I know, I know…I’m amazed at the amount of Republican dogwhistles that are out there this early…”cheerleader”(with all that entails!)…”Obama-Paul foreign policy”…no wait, “Rubio-Obama foreign policy”…
If they keep this up, all Hillary will have to do is a half-hearted throwing-under-the-bus of Obama over something stupid, and then make fun of the bedwetters (Paul, Rubio, et all) and win it in a cakewalk. She’s already got to be seen as the toughest candidate either party has right now.
AxelFoley
@Cacti:
Exactly. 9/11 provided a lot of cover for these racist scumbag cops and Guiliani. After that, I remember the media calling that ugly fucker “America’s Mayor”.
GTFO
Sherparick
Three months ago a right-wing nut ambushed two Pennsylvania State Troopers, killing one and critically wounding another. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/13/eric-frein-suspect-in-pennsylvania-state-trooper-ambush-charged-with-terrorism/ Faux News and the rightwing did not notice, even though their rhetoric of the last 25 years created all the nutty ideas that filled this particular nuts head. The shameless racism of the right-wing is amazing, and I include most police unions in the right-wing.