Last night, a bunch of cops and former cops paid to have the following Yodafied statement of disapproval flown over NYC in an apparent attempt to show their displeasure for the current mayor. All they have really accomplished to date is making themselves look foolish and evil, and now we know they can’t write a simple sentence.
Today, Patrick Lynch’s goon squad decided to up the ante, and after asking that all protests stop until the burial of the two dead officers so that the families could mourn, they pulled this little stunt:
Thousands of police officers from across the nation packed a church and spilled onto streets Saturday to honor Officer Rafael Ramos as a devoted family man, aspiring chaplain and hero, though an air of unrest surrounding his ambush shooting was not completely pushed aside.
While mourners inside the church applauded politely as Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke, hundreds of officers outside turned their backs on him in a show of disrespect for what they see as his support for anti-police protesters.
The rush of officers far and wide to New York for Ramos’ funeral reminded some of the bond after the Sept. 11 attacks and Superstorm Sandy. Vice President Joe Biden promised that the “incredibly diverse city can and will show the nation how to bridge any divide.”
Still, tensions were evident when officers turned away from giant screens showing de Blasio, who has been harshly criticized by New York Police Department union officials as a contributor to a climate of mistrust that preceded the killings of Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu.
Let’s remember what horrible things de Blasio said to create this “climate of mistrust”:
This is profoundly personal to me. I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he said that Dante reminded him of what he looked like as a teenager. And he said I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens. And I said to him, I did.
Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.
And that painful sense of contradiction that our young people see first, that our police are here to protect us, and we honor that, and at the same time, there’s a history we have to overcome, because for so many of our young people, there’s a fear. And for so many of our families, there’s a fear.
Oh, the horror. He had to point out to his son that which is so widely known that it is backed up by repeated studies and so familiar to black and minority families across the country that this is referred to as “the talk“:
“If you are stopped by a cop, do what he says, even if he’s harassing you, even if you didn’t do anything wrong. Let him arrest you, memorize his badge number, and call me as soon as you get to the precinct. Keep your hands where he can see them. Do not reach for your wallet. Do not grab your phone. Do not raise your voice. Do not talk back. Do you understand me?”
In other words, “the talk” is exactly what you would think cops would want kids to be told- don’t be threatening, do what they say, don’t raise your voice, and for the love of everything holy, don’t reach for anything, even if they ask you, because this might happen:
Yeah. Mayor de Blasio really threw the police under the bus. Assholes.
And let’s remember what is so particularly ugly about this- this is motivated as much by the desire to not reform and to maintain the current institutional racism as it is the current contract talks and union elections.
Fuck Patrick Lynch and his goons.
Les Nessman
You get arrested for this kinda talk, now-a-days.
Liberty60
So whatever compassion I am tempted to feel for the slain officers, it is tempered by the thought that these assholes may actually represent the departed.
Roger Moore
It is exactly what the cops want kids to be told. But they don’t want anyone pointing out that black kids are in special need of it because there’s a long history of problems between the police and minorities.
satby
I think my late father, who dreaded having to pull his gun in the fear that someday he might kill someone, even if justified, would be right there with you John. The bad cops, the bullies, the authoritarians: all make it harder and less safe for the good cops to do their jobs.
debbie
What is it about America that gives rise to empty-suited bullies? Gulliani, LaPierre, Lynch, Limbaugh, on and on. You know in a real confrontation, they’d be crying like little girls.
Face
Your last sentence could be misconstrued as a threat and get you arrested in this climate of absolute no tolerance whatsoever. Im only half-joking.
shelley
And I’m sure all of this play-acting was of great comfort to the family of the murdered officer.
lamh36
The police union single handedly turned the attention from the slain officer’s family grief to the assholishness of police union
Punchy
When I first read the text of that sign, I interrpreted “turn our backs *to* you” (as opposes to ‘backs from you’) as support for the Mayor. Whoops. So they cant even script a good pithy burn without looking like illiterate shitheads. Amazing.
NotMax
Tribalism is the new black.
Helen
Reposted from an earlier thread where Corner Stone said “fuck these fucking assholes”
Yeah I was embarrassed for NYC today. We NYC people never get embarrassed because it’s, well, NYC and we have so many fucking assholes that we just laugh and let it roll off our backs. See: Trump, Donald.
But today, those fucking assholes embarrassed me.
raven
From NYT:
PhoenixRising
They ought to be ashamed of themselves. What kind of person politicizes a funeral for a colleague who died in the line, whose young children are present?
To resist their boss’s statement that, in his role as a father, he’s coached his own son to be afraid of them? Shouldn’t that make you want to be the kind of cop who is respected, not feared?
Two of my cousins are on duty this evening, my uncle was a suburban chief when he retired, and my grandfather was the precinct union rep/steward in Cleveland back when that was a big city. He had 23 years of service, never having drawn his gun. None of them is so thin-skinned and sensitive that he’s offended by me telling my child of color the truth about the world they patrol.
If NYPD wants respect, they can try acting like peace officers instead of the best-armed gang of thugs on the block.
Alison
@shelley: Honest question (because I haven’t read much of the coverage so I easily may have missed it) – have the families of the cops who were killed said anything, either in agreement with or opposition to, Lynch’s crap? I know the families of Eric Garner and Mike Brown spoke out and denounced the killings (not that they needed to, but they did, because they’re decent human beings). But I’m curious if either of these cops’ families or friends have told Lynch to STFU and stop using their dead relative as a disgusting political football…
AnonPhenom
@satby:
But the good cops protect the bad cops because cops.
When 5% of cops account for 40% of resisting arrest charges (a well known merkin for police brutality) and 15% account for > 70% of resisting arrest charges, ignoring the symptoms is like ignoring a 102* fever after coming back from west Africa.
And worse, when the truth is pointed out you get assholes like Lynch who are only too willing to turn it into a devisive situation instead of addressing the problem.
David Koch
They’re not gonna say it.
The reason the cops hate de Blasio is because he ran against “Stop and Frisk”
de Blasio was muddling along with no one interested in his campaign until he (alone) came out forcefully against “S & F”. Once that happened his candidacy caught on like wild fire and swept him into office with the biggest victory in NYC’s 250 year history.
For years I’ve been saying on this blog how “S & F” was a ticking time bomb – a bomb that no one in the blogosphere would cover.
800,000 minorities per year were being harassed and brutalized by the cops, many were being killed. Yet no one would dare speak to the issue. The frustration and anger of the average citizens were boiling and once de Blasio tapped into it he struck a gusher of support.
The cops hate that he uncorked the overwhelming opposition of these brutal practice. They felt humiliated by the stunning, historic election results, which was in many ways a referendum on the cops.
But there is a price to pay for doing the right thing. I often wondered why the other candidates would steer away from such a ripe issue, but now I know why. They knew the cops, aided by the freak corporate media, would sooner or later smear them as anti-cop and pro criminal.
El Caganer
Where have you gone, Bill de Blasio?
NYPD turns its lonely backs to you.
jo6pac
WOW this Great News on fuax and I guess serving the public is the new last thought of PDs. I do hope there might be a few out that have been able to fight off the new group thought to serve the Citizens of the neighborhood. Then again welcome to the new and improved Amerika. If you think this is bad well get ready. Sad.
Then again biden gets a pass, oh right he’s guest/slave of israel.
Violet
@lamh36:
Terrible for the grieving family members and extremely inappropriate at the funeral. In the larger scheme of things maybe not so bad for the city overall. Just how many people did the police union win over to the side of the police with these antics?
Baud
Anyone else read that banner and think
Where have you gone, Bill de Blasio?
The nation turns its racist backs to you.
Woo hoo hoo
ETA: apparently, one of you did.
jharp
@PhoenixRising:
Was your Granddad in Cleveland during the mob wars in the late ’70’s?
Like 40 bombings in “78 I think.
Mike in NC
Shitty cops indeed.
Brian R.
You know what really contributes to the “climate of distrust”?
The video evidence of NYPD officers killing an unarmed man with a move the NYPD itself had banned.
Talking about that? Not so much.
rikyrah
I’ve written this before but will do so again.
I am from the city where ONE out of every THREE dollars budgeted for the POLICE DEPARTMENT..
is to SETTLE POLICE ABUSE CASES
I’ll repeat..
it’s to SETTLE POLICE ABUSE CASES
ONE OUT OF EVERY THREE DOLLARS BUDGETED!!
WHY is this not outrageous to the general public?
I live in Chicago.
Pogonip
Occasionally I see a link to a site called We Are Respectable Negroes. Still waiting for We Are Respectable Police Officers.
Brian R.
I think it’s an incredibly far-sighted move for the police union to make sure it alienates as many liberals as possible.
Run into the arms of the conservatives, Lynch, and I’m sure they’ll do everything they can to protect your collective bargaining agreements.
KG
@rikyrah: because police issues are usually local issues and the vast majority of people don’t pay attention to local politics
rikyrah
@David Koch:
You are on point.
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: You’re right. Stop & Frisk was nothing but legalized harassment of minority males but the police are butt hurt that it has been stopped. I hope the minority community is rallying around their Mayor.
PurpleGirl
This police force still has members who were probably in that rally/riot in 1992. During that rally/riot they passed around a cartoon of Mayor Dinkins as a “washroom attendant”. They also referred to him that way. And Il Duce never reproved them for it.
R. Porrofatto
The few disgraced a funeral for their fellow officers by turning it into a petulant complaint. IMO, as someone who has unquestionably professional police officers in the family, they dishonored the uniform.
debbie
@Brian R.:
When Kasich tried to end collective bargaining in Ohio, he excluded cops from the ban, but they still were out in force against him. Lynch is a fool.
EriktheRed
I know it’s only been a week, but I keep waiting to see some sign that Lynch’s bile backfires on him. Perhaps I’m being impatient, but I have a bad feeling it won’t happen.
Fred Dickinson
Fuck the police! And fuck Bill deBlasio for caving into bourgeois sentimentality and going to the funeral. This was the chickens coming home to roost. The pigs in blue are engaged in a war against the working class of New York City and should get the same amount of sympathy as the Brownshirts .
Btw, militarization of the pigs is the war coming home–wars supported an enabled by supppsedly “left” politicians.
Drop bourgeois sentimentality and get down to basics -class struggle, baby.
Violet
I just can’t see how this petulant display is going to win people over. It’s so childish. You’d punish your teenage kid for doing something like that at a funeral. If they couldn’t be respectful they should have stayed home.
This is a wrong on a human level. People understand the police anger about the shootings. They understand the support of officers around the country for the families of those slain. That’s easy to understand and have great sympathy for. But childish behavior at a funeral? Hiring a plane to fly a banner during the funeral? That’s tacky, childish and not the kind of thing the average person looks at and goes, “Oh, yeah, that’s totally understandable.” If they wanted to win over the average citizen to their side they’ve gone about it totally the wrong way.
Trentrunner
I’d love to drop my bourgeois sentimentality, but I love my new iPad Air, so you can just fuck right off. America!
Apparently at the funeral today citizens were overheard saying “Thank you for your service.” TO. THE. POLICE.
The militarization is now complete.
gwangung
@Violet: Well, then, the obvious conclusion is that they don’t care about the average citizen.
Helen
@EriktheRed:
It won’t. The police union in NYC is one of the most powerful. My own mega pet peeve is that all other city workers are required to live in the city. The cops and teachers; no. So what happens is that people from outside of the city, people from places like Long Island, become cops with no real appreciation or understanding of the city and its residents.
They bring with them the bigotry of suburban versus urban and all of the pre-conceived notions that entails.
They do it for the pension. 25 years and out. And they spend the next 25 years in Florida, or Arizona, or upper NY State collecting.
I grew up on Long Island and have lived in the city for more than 30 years. I know these people.
SteveLCo
@Brian R.: Well the conservatives will protect the collective bargaining of the cops-they need them to keep the “rabble” under control.
Violet
@gwangung: Absolutely, but it takes childish displays like this for a lot of people to pay attention. White people specifically. They tend to be on the side of the police, but watching officers turn their backs to the mayor at a funeral and seeing the police union spend money to fly a tacky banner during a funeral is off-putting. Someone who doesn’t pay much attention to politics can easily see how the police are being childish. It doesn’t win people over.
In the smaller scheme of things the NYPD is focusing on the city and their contract negotiations. It may make sense to them in that context. But New York City is such a significant city in the US and such antics make national news. The average person seeing this on the news in Kansas or California is going to be shocked at how childish the police are being. It’s so wrong on a human level. So inconsiderate of the families of those officers who were slain. It does not win people over to their side. And because in some senses NYPD represents “the police,” not to mention that police from all over the country are there, it can get translated into “this is how police behave.” That’s not a good thing from a police perspective.
rikyrah
@Fred Dickinson:
Agreed.
Do you know ANY Mayor that doesn’t go to the funerals of dead cops/dead firefighters?
Really?
It’s something that Mayors do.
It’s not like cops get killed or firefighters get killed everyday.
It’s still a rare occurance, and I can’t remember seeing a report of a cop/firefighter funeral where one of the attendees isn’t the Mayor.
Maybe in the city where you live, it’s not done.
Just like our recently ousted Governor went to the funeral of every serviceman killed from our state.
But, here…Mayors go to dead cops and dead firefighters’ funerals.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
IMO, one of the most assholish things you can do is take someone else’s ceremony (funeral, wedding, graduation, whatever) and try to make it all about you instead. Bunch of big fucking crybabies who can’t stand to not be the center of attention for five fucking minutes.
rikyrah
@Helen:
Didn’t know that.
That’s absolute bullshyt.
I didn’t agree with 99.99% of what the former Mayor, King Richard II did.
But, I completely agreed with him sticking with the policy created by his father.
IF you get a paycheck from the City of Chicago..
YOUR AZZ HAS TO RESIDE IN THE CITY OF CHICAGO.
And NOBODY is exempt – not the Police or the Fire Department.
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Yep. I have a relative by marriage who turned someone else’s wedding into her deal by making changes to things without asking the bride. Horror show. She’s still All About Herself. No surprise.
FlipYrWhig
Hey, remember when NYC police and fire had the respect of everyone because of 9/11? They sure squandered that goodwill fast. It’s been nothing but reprehensible and disgusting displays for weeks. Fuck them Abner Louima style.
Villago Delenda Est
@PhoenixRising:
They are shameless.
Utterly.
Some people got really riled when I suggested a few weeks back that some pigs need to be offed.
Because these assholes are so shameless, it’s looking more and more that there is no solution that does not involve violence to this problem.
In eastern Europe in the late 80’s, a lot of police states got overthrown without the need for violence. There were of course exceptions, like Romania.
Let’s try to not be an exception. But then again, we’re not nearly as civilized as the Germans, or the Poles, or the Czechs.
MD Rackham
@R. Porrofatto:
Do those “professional” relatives speak out against the bad cops on the force? Do they speak up when their partner commits perjury? Do they testify against them in court?
If not, the “professional” label is misplaced.
(My ex-in-laws are LAPD and LASD. Criminal thugs, every one.)
FlipYrWhig
@Violet:
You overstate the sensitivity and sensibility of average people. They’re not going to be shocked. They hate-fear Scary Negroes. Ergo they love the cops who protect them from them vicariously. The end.
Mr Stagger Lee
@rikyrah: I would like to see if lawyers for Eric Garner’s family and others do what Morris Dees of the SPLC done when he sued the Klan and the Aryan Nations, with the exception of going after the pensions of the police. F*cking with the pensions would even the most Bull Connoresque or Frank Rizzoesque cop major pause..
Marc
@Fred Dickinson: Agent provocateur or just a comment troll?
I guess what I’m asking is, are you on the clock or are you just giving it away?
Violet
@FlipYrWhig: What have the NYC fire department done to earn your scorn? Are they involved in this somehow?
Helen
@rikyrah: Oh thanks for reminding me. Firefighters don’t have to live here either.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: Best I can tell, the NYFD is light years more socially advanced than the NYPD.
As I said in an earlier thread, it appears the only professionals associated with the NYPD is the cast of Law and Order.
Violet
@FlipYrWhig: I take your point. I also think that people are sensitive to grieving families. And childish behavior at funerals, even when its done by police officers, is seen as wrong. It may make no difference, but it’s not the kind of thing that wins people over to the side of the police.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
You do realize that two police officers were murdered while sitting in their patrol car. You’re in support of that?
Marc
@Villago Delenda Est:
How’s that position looking now? Did it help the cause of stopping police brutality?
Because this warmed-over Weathermen poseur bullshit isn’t.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Better dead than Fred.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet: bad writing on my part. I haven’t seen anything by NYFD.
On the larger issue, I do have a friend from back home in New Jersey who’s an EMT and he’s been very worked up about supposed anti-cop attitudes post-Ferguson, so NYPD is getting a lot of support far and wide.
srv
@rikyrah: Citation? I’d like to use that somewhere.
rikyrah
@Mr Stagger Lee:
I don’t know if you know the name Jon Burge.
He’s a Chicago cop who tortured hundreds of Black men during his career, sending them to jail on false confessions.
There was never a criminal case brought up against him.
He only went to jail because of civil suits.
And yet……THEY STILL DIDN’T HAVE THE VOTES TO TAKE AWAY HIS PENSION
But, I hear you about stripping them of their pensions.
JHF
Had lunch with a friend today in Taos, NM and talked about this. He has a nephew who’s a cop in Kansas City. The nephew said, “Some of us became cops because we want to help people. But there’s a bunch who became cops so they could hurt people and get away with it.”
Violet
@FlipYrWhig: Well, n=1 is not significant data, but you could be right even so. I guess it depends how this NYPD cop union stuff goes. If the police union keeps overplaying their hand and looking like insensitive, demanding, childish clods, they could alienate some people, especially if, say, polls show support for Mayor De Blasio. There are a lot of moving pieces.
Joel
@EriktheRed: it will run against them, but not in the way they think. Lynch’s actions definitely make the job of policing more dangerous, not that the fucker would know.
rikyrah
City pays heavy price for police brutality
Posted: 04/14/2014, 02:23am | ashaw
In Chicago, the term “police brutality” is inextricably linked to former Cmdr. Jon Burge’s sadistic South Side homicide squad, which imposed extreme measures, including torture, to extract false confessions from dozens of suspects.
Burge’s “Midnight Crew” may be the most visible symbol of excessive force, but from a legal and fiscal standpoint they’re actually a relatively small part of a shockingly pervasive citywide problem uncovered by a Better Government Association investigation the Sun-Times published a week ago.
Brutality-related lawsuits have cost Chicago taxpayers $521 million over the last decade — that’s more than half a billion dollars — and Burge’s team accounts only for about 15 percent of that staggering figure.
In 2013 alone, the city paid out $84.6 million in settlements, judgments, legal fees and other expenses, more than triple the budgeted amount.
That’s a huge expenditure for a city with billions of dollars in unfunded pension obligations, and a budget crisis severe enough to force mental health clinic shutdowns, reduced library hours and higher fees for water, parking and other services.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/7/71/167182/city-pays-heavy-price-for-police-brutality
Baud
@rikyrah:
Does not compute. If he went to jail, there was a criminal case.
Davis X. Machina
We’re on schedule to get our own, American, Freikorps right in time for the centenary of the end of the First World War.
Cervantes
@Baud:
Right. He served federal time — though not nearly enough to punish him for the atrocities he committed — and words do not exist that could convey what I think should happen to him.
SatanicPanic
Fuck the NYPD. Fire every last one of these punks.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet: True, but this guy is my barometer for working-class Democrat-leaners, so his reaction feels more significant than just an n=1 sample. But I wish I could presume that people in general find this sort of thing boorish at best, loathsome at worst. I don’t have faith that they do.
Violet
@FlipYrWhig: Have you asked him what he thinks of the police turning their backs to the mayor at the funeral and flying the banner at the funeral? I’d be curious of that sort of behavior registers at boorish with someone who is predisposed to support the police.
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Violence is always your answer to any problem. Month in and month out you post here calling for pain, suffering and death to be inflicted on anyone you disagree with, or don’t like.
It’s gone from being tedious to downright creepy.
Howard Beale IV
The NYPD is lucky they aren’t in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker would have yanked a whole bunch of rights away from them.
Helen
@efgoldman: And those two things go together. Unfortunately in America the correlation is mis-understood. Or backwards.
In America there are 80 shootings a day. 30 of them are homicides. The remaining 50 are accidents or suicide. There are 310,000,000 people in America.
In Ireland, there are 38 shootings a year. In Ireland there are 6,800,000 people.
You do the math
Licensing in Ireland is extremely restrictive. You need a good reason for wanting the firearm. Hunting qualifies as does certain other activities like humane dispatch of large animals. Personal protection does not qualify as a good reason.
Sorry – did not mean to turn this into a “Helen hates guns” thread.
Edited to change “a year” to “a day”
rikyrah
@Baud:
the perjury was in the civil case
srv
@rikyrah: Tying poilce brutality settlements to taxes and lower police pensions might be a good diea.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Got it. Thanks.
Tree With Water
@rikyrah: California’s attorney general Kamala Harris upset people when she announced the death penalty as off the table for a cop killer, just prior to that slain officer’s memorial service (as San Francisco’s DA). I agreed with her decision because I oppose the death penalty, but wow, she could hardly have handled it worse. Dianne Feinstein was spitting bullets she was so mad. It’s was less a matter of it being impolitic, of course, than it was her callous disregard of reasonably held expectations concerning official conduct. Needless to say, DeBlasio betrayed no such reasonable expectation (quite the contrary). The shoe is on the other foot in NYC. Lynch and his cronies have behaved reprehensibly, and the people and police officers of NYC both deserve better. Whether or not they consider that to be a reasonable expectation is something I know nothing about. But if they don’t, they should.
SiubhanDuinne
How is this not insubordination?
Debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I haven’t seen any evidence that Bratton disagrees with their poutrage.
rikyrah
@Debbie:
uh huh
uh huh
Helen
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, it may be. But what retaliation options does the Mayor have? First – legally, what can he really do to them? Can he pull a Regan?
Then politically – can he pull a Regan? And should he? They are 35,000 strong, plus retirees. He is 1 man.
Honestly I don’t know the answer.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s a funeral not some city function.
SiubhanDuinne
@Debbie:
I meant insubordination to the Mayor. Isn’t he effectively their CiC? Maybe not with that exact title, but he is the top civilian in the chain of command.
Heliopause
I wouldn’t be so optimistic. Mayor deBowlofjello and Vice President Biden both attended today’s Party Congress proceedings, showing where their allegiances lie, and TV news is treating it with a solemnity usually reserved for dead popes. Hate to say it, but the waffen-SS have a substantial lead going into the locker room, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
KG
@Helen: I’ve been saying for a while that he should use the Reagan move if they pull the blue flu bullshit over this. Not worth it for this stupidity, better to take the moral high ground early, makes it easier to drop the hammer later if you need to
Mike J
@SiubhanDuinne:
The police are not the military and the mayor is not the commander in chief.
raven
Mandalay
@David Koch:
They’ll probably hate Judge Bredar in Baltimore as well then. Last week he threw out a case the cops brought against a guy who was carrying a gun because the cops had no valid reason to search him after making an illegal traffic stop:
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
I have family on the job in Atlanta. I know the talk well.
#NotAllCopsJustTheShittyOnes
SatanicPanic
@Mike J: Isn’t he their boss though? I wouldn’t get away with the turning my back on the CEO when he was speaking
The Dangerman
I remember, after things like Sandy Hook, how politicizing a tragedy was un-American.
Guess that doesn’t apply to Police Unions (or the Rightwing, for that matter, as Fox has beaten this dead horse to glue).
raven
@SatanicPanic: What the fuck do you think he’s going to do? There were thousands of cops there and what they did was stupid and awful but it’s not illegal. You think they should try to identify each offender from the video? It ain’t the hill to die on.
And no, if you look at the post I just made he’s not their boss.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
CEOs aren’t subject to the First Amendment or, usually, a union contract that bars firing without cause. They also don’t have to navigate public opinion.
Fred Dickinson
@Marc:
I am a committed revolutionary socialist .
What are you? Another bourgeois Obama-supporting reformist ? You’re the kind of people that would hold a debate club while Jews are gassed at Auschwitz.
Let me ask you a question: are you ready for some communism, or not ?
SatanicPanic
@raven: I don’t know, make an example out of a few? I just don’t see how allowing that to happen is a good thing for democracy. He appoints their boss, maybe it’s time to appoint someone else.
@Baud: Is telling your boss to FU something protected by the First Amendment if you work for the government?
raven
@Fred Dickinson: Yea, you are one of those punk-ass motherfuckers that get other people to get hurt while you run your fucking mouth. I’ve seen you sorry punks in action. Fuck you.
raven
@SatanicPanic: I don’t think you’ve thought that through.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Protesting your boss’s policies is.
Fred Dickinson
@raven:
I got my ads tear gassed at one Occupy protest, and my legs beat with a nightstick at another for “resisting”. I’ve been arrested six times , three coming in Iraq War protests while you petite bourgeois spineless motherfuckers were supporting the war criminal John Kerry. Care to talk any more shot with me?
Fuck the police.
Baud
@Fred Dickinson:
Got that tattooed on my ass.
raven
@Fred Dickinson: Good, fuck you and your bullshit. Pansy ass motherfucker.
BGinCHI
When I first read this I thought it said:
“De Blasio, Our Blacks Have Turned To You”
Maybe that’s what they were really trying to say.
Cervantes
@raven:
Well, “I don’t think you’ve thought that through,” either.
raven
@Cervantes: Every fucking word of it.
Fred Dickinson
@raven:
When the proletarian revolution comes (and it will) , you and your ilk will get one-way tickets to Alaska along with the Koch Brothers.
SatanicPanic
@raven: Uh, enlighten me then. I don’t see the point of keeping the man around if he’s defending murderous cops.
@Baud: fair enough. maybe Di Blasio could pursue a different route.
PhoenixRising
@jharp: Nope, he died (heart disease) in 1965. His brother, who was still on the job (and still patrol, Uncle Bill wasn’t an ambitious guy or a sober one), retired during the mob bombings in ’78.
All I know of my dad’s da is, He brought his little brother from Ireland when he was 19 and Billy was 11; he never drew his gun; his funeral exceeded the capacity of the church; and he built the house my dad was born in during his off hours and weekends with his own hands. (And help from Bill, who lived in the basement until he got married. Only fair, he dug the hole with a pick and shovel while Tom was walking his beat.) These were not men who would easily accept racial integration, and I’m glad my legends don’t have to stand up to a post-1968 reality.
My cousins who are on the job today are both military-preference hires. Both served in Gulf War I, and they’ve mentioned offhand that they are concerned about the younger hires who got their MP experience in Baghdad or Kabul. Those guys are a little jumpy, and too quick to get out of the car.
SatanicPanic
@Fred Dickinson: Sadly the Koch Brothers will have orchestrated it
PhoenixRising
@BGinCHI: You’ve now spent more time interpreting that hissy fit of a banner than they spent ‘writing’ it, but I like your ideas.
PhoenixRising
@Baud: Did you keep the design? Maybe we can get a group discount.
Fred Dickinson
How many of you running your mouths have ever been arrested? Or beaten by the cops ? How many have made your bodies a living testament to the class struggle ?
skerry
Other police departments sent representatives to the funeral today. I want to know if they turned their backs too. Specifically, I want to know if my local cops did. But I don’t know how to find out. Both my county police and Baltimore city police let it be known via social media that they were represented there.
BGinCHI
@PhoenixRising: Can you picture the 3 or 4 geniuses in the room “writing” that together?
Also, seriously, turning your backs? What will they do next, pretend to read the paper while he speaks?
Or cough all together at once?
Grow up, psychos.
BGinCHI
@Fred Dickinson: Doug, seriously, it’s too easy to tell it’s you when you use the C word.
Gravenstone
@Fred Dickinson: You’re a caricature, right?
Fred Dickinson
H@BGinCHI:
By communism I mean the type mentioned in this incisive article from Jacobon Magazine.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
Obama represents rentism.
The GOP is for exterminism.
Which future will you choose ?
Patricia Kayden
@Fred Dickinson: Killing cops is not the answer. Period. Not getting your point at all. As a Black woman, all I want is equal treatment. The over policing of Black communities must stop.
Gravenstone
@Howard Beale IV: Walker is still coddling the police and fire unions, for now. They’ll have served their purpose and will be next up on the block.
Fred Dickinson
@Patricia Kayden:
Clearly, the answer is Sternly Worded Letters. That’s the ticket .
Belafon
From a police chief in Tennessee of all places:
This is in response to someone writing to him saying that the protests in Nashville made it hard on the majority, so why were they allowed. Read the whole thing.
debbie
@Belafon:
What kind of thinking is this anyway? This is why the NYPD is pissed at DiBlassio, because he didn’t discourage the protests. Since when does the First Amendment only belong to the police?
Belafon
@debbie:
It’s the thinking of someone who’s part of the majority, has enjoyed the benefits of being in the majority status, and doesn’t like it when they benefits are challenged. In other words, a white person.
After the protests in Ferguson, I had to deal with my parents getting uncomfortable by blacks protesting. It’s part of the reason so many whites turn to FOX.
Gin & Tonic
@Fred Dickinson: How many have made your bodies a living testament to the class struggle ?
I have made my body a temple to bourgeois living.
BGinCHI
@Fred Dickinson: I had to walk really fast by the JacoCinnaBon store at the airport recently.
It just smelled so delicious and radical; something about the combination of burnt sugar, the seizing of the means of production, and a badass Roman Consul.
Helen
@Belafon: Careful there. I am white. I am, for all intents and purposes, if not rich, then comfortable. I have a Master’s degree from an Ivy League school. Yeah – I did not grow up in that sphere at all (single parent household where the parent worked in a warehouse) but I am on the side of the protesters. In fact I joined them, as many of the protests started at Union Square where I work.
Be careful not to generalize.
satby
@rikyrah: Not exactly correct.
Belafon
Looks like Indonesia has lost contact with an airplane: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/28/us-indonesia-airplane-idUSKBN0K601C20141228.
satby
Keeps losing my link: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge
Belafon
@Helen: I’m white, too. Not all whites are racists, but it’s pretty obvious that this person it white, probably like 99% certain. Not all blacks voted for Obama, but you can say that blacks supported Obama without talking about all of them.
Mike in NC
@Belafon: Have noticed this month lots of elderly White People complaining about Ebola, the awesome Islamic Caliphate, and the decades old War on Christmas. No word yet on the War on New Year’s Day.
GregB
@Belafon:
Oof. Hope this one turns up with everyone alive.
skerry
The Ferguson, MO police public relations officer has been placed on unpaid leave after telling a Washington Post reporter that the memorial for Michael Brown was “a pile of trash.”
KG
@BGinCHI: take a page from Joe Wilson and yelling “you lie!” at his next speech?
Baud
@Belafon:
Fucking black holes.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Racist.
Helen
@Baud:
Really. Where’s Don Lemon when you need him?
Heliopause
Sort of OT: Didn’t know this was going to be on until I just saw it on the TV schedule. WWE Tribute to the Troops.
Sorry folks. This country is doomed. Just hope it doesn’t take the rest of the world down with it.
MattR
@skerry: The real question is if he was placed on leave for making the comments or for lying about what he said when initially questioned by his superiors. (EDIT: I have a feeling if he had fessed up to his bosses right away, they would have denounced his remarks as not representing the department’s feelings but he wouldn’t have suffered any punishment)
Comrade Luke
@Belafon: It’s already the top headline on cnn. Looks like we know what we’ll be talking about during the new year!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: As is implied by your nym here, sir.
Gravenstone
Starlin, dude. I know the Cubs have a veritable log jam of prospective shortstops, but c’mon, this isn’t the way to thin it out. Castro questioned about nightclub shooting in DR (his second in as many weeks).
Mandalay
@skerry:
The choice of words is doubly damning once you understand what provoked them:
You have to wonder what possesses someone to deliberately drive into a memorial to a person who was murdered.
Gravenstone
@Mandalay: Not really. You just assume that the driver either didn’t believe it was murder, or more likely didn’t believe Micheal was a person.
skerry
@Mandalay: @Gravenstone:
I expect better from a professional (in this case, the public relations officer) than I do a random person on the street.
It’s an obvious character flaw on my part.
Marc
@Fred Dickinson:
You need to update your source material. All the cool revolutionaries read Jacobon.
Better trolls, please.
SWMBO
@Belafon: We wouldn’t be having these protests if all chiefs were like this one. THIS is what a good cop is and does. Bless him and keep him.
fidelio
@SWMBO: The police in Nashville were passing out hot chocolate & bottled water to the protestors. It was odd, comparing what went on here to reports from other cities.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: Chicago has normalized Chicago’s level of violence. It was a normal level (or, “better”) in the rest of the North/Northeast for years but Chicago doesn’t realize since it is Second (cough–third–cough) City that the other big contenda cities have dropped in shootings and so on and they’re still elevated. If it’s “normal” there’s not so much pressure on the City Council to do anything drastic about it.
1/3 of funds going to pay out lawsuits means less money spent on homicide and other violent crimes investigations which means more criminals running loose and offending again. Good work, Chi-Town.
Another Holocene Human
@Fred Dickinson:
No, Fred Dickinson, fuck you. They were city employees who died on the job and he is their boss.
You know what a dick move is? Avoiding the fuck out of your employee’s funeral when they died on the job (because you’re afraid of said employee’s coworkers, you know coworkers tend to blame the boss when employees die, that’s kind of a natural response).
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: You’ve got that right and since they’ve pretty much done away with affirmative action having residency requirements for cops would be pretty much the only way to ensure that the cops aren’t a bunch of outsider beat-down-aholics who don’t respect the culture, don’t know the neighborhoods, and oh yeah, don’t have any skin in the game if they turn your city into an unlivable war zone because they don’t own property in the city and their kids don’t go to the schools or play in the parks.
MattR
@Another Holocene Human: At least in NYC, that situation started 50+ years ago while the residency requirements were still in place as the police and firefighters were driven from the neighborhoods they grew up in by rising housing costs and moved to Staten Island because it was a place in NYC that they could afford to raise a family on a cop’s salary. The result was that the police technically lived in the city but they were still segregated from the communities that they were policiing on a daily basis (This is also why Staten Island votes more Republican than the other boroughs)
4jkb4ia
Of course, a highly disturbed person received a highly specific and personal message from Bill de Blasio to shoot two police officers. It is all the mayor’s fault. /s
What is cynically frightening is that this is a union, and not too unrelated to the Rikers corrections union, whose head is powerful enough that the NYT happily did a 2-printed-page expose on him. They can make De Blasio’s life very difficult without these stupid stunts even if they can’t go on strike. They can do what is expected of them in an exaggerated/exaggeratedly slow way and blame the mayor if crime goes up.
Righteous rant, John. #notsureitmattersthatIwrotethis
TooManyJens
I haven’t seen anybody mention it in this thread, but Officer Ramos’ family wanted Mayor de Blasio at the funeral. Which both answers the question of “what was he doing there” and makes the back-turners even bigger fucking assholes. They chose to disrespect the wishes of the deceased officer’s family so that they could make their political point. I guess they’re only pro-cop if that cop is one of their authoritarian pals.
Fred
Many above commentors have pointed out how these churlish pranks at a funeral will disgust the American public. While that should be true it begs the question, if some segment of the American public hasn’t been disgusted by the brutality and insensitivity displayed by so many police individually and by their organizations in response to public concerns over recent events and/or those events when will they ever be outraged by anything police might do?
Applejinx
They left out an L. DeBlasio, our blacks have turned to you.
chopper
@Fred Dickinson:
And I’m on seal team six. seriously, I said it on the internet and everything!
Go fuck yourself, shitbird.
Citizen_X
@Fred Dickinson:
Comrade Bocephus! Welcome!
Frankensteinbeck
@Mandalay:
Racism. Come on, that one’s easy. Especially since the area is already a flashpoint of hardcore ‘every black dead is a step in the right direction’ racism. There are a lot of people – a lot of people – who get a thrill out of hearing someone gunned down a black man and got away with it, and will, say, give him hundreds of thousands of dollars
El Caganer
@Citizen_X: We’ve put the pigs in the ground/We’ve got the Kochs on ice/and all the rowdy Reds are comin’ over tonight!
Nicole
A fine effort, but by conflating communism and socialism you gave yourself away in your first post.
Citizen_X
@El Caganer: *golf clap*
TooManyJens
@Fred Dickinson:
So you say, but my money’s on “bot programmed to spew holier-than-thou ‘revolutionary’ phrases.”
FormerSwingVoter
@TooManyJens: There’s a lot of new passengers on the “Kill All Cops” train. When this is the way they act, this is the way we respond.
They reap what they motherfucking sow. No matter what the media might tell you.
Alan "Danger" Turing
Can these supposed guardians of the community not be fired for cause? Does the police union now demand a “right to douchebaggery” clause in the contract? Just close the police force.
spudvol
Compare NYPD’s response to MNPD’s Response.
Matt
@PhoenixRising: That might make normal people want to be respected, but it’s just parsed as an insult by the fascists who’ve signed up for the NYPD.
For instance, assholes just like this:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/boy-arrested-tossed-glass-window-mom-article-1.1801341
Piggies nearly KILLED a goddamn EIGTH-GRADER by throwing him through a plate-glass window. Because he was “mouthing off”.
In a sane world, de Blasio would make it clear that, after paying $500 million out in lawsuits against the NYPD in the last 5 YEARS that anybody who doesn’t understand what “excessive force” is can either resign today or lose their goddamn pension when they get busted roughing up suspects, “wartime” or no.
AndoChronic
The only question a PD shrink should need to ask an applicant is “do you want to be a cop?” If the answer is yes, they should NOT be hired.
rapier
The police commissioner said the back turning was “inappropriate”. A strong word. Tough guy him. Then too most of the City counsel lined up to be sure not to be critical of these guys. Have any police gone on record as being critical? I suspect not. They are afraid to, as the politicians are. Afraid to go against the flow and the old thin blue line. So it goes those who don’t like it will leave and those who love it will join.
It all can be seen as part of a necessary process so that the status quo of ever more power and wealth concentrated at the top can be defended and defended it must be.
Rathskeller
@Fred Dickinson: You’re in the wrong blog. No one here supports what you’re saying, because it is murderous and insane.
But then again, you’ve got strongly held views, so please go ahead and assault a cop, or whatever you think would make you feel better. Or just type inflammatory bullshit into a website where you’re not welcome.
Jeff
The banner is supposed to recall the Simon and Garfunkel song. That deBlasio, he’s no Dimaggio, as in, Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo. Woo. Woo.
Procopius
@Fred Dickinson:Gosh, that takes me back. “Power to the People!”
Procopius
@MattR: “Why Staten Island votes more Republican than the rest of the city.” Yeah, but convicted income tax cheater Grimm, for heaven’s sake?
Nathanael
Goon squad is right. Lynch has a history of this stuff. He’s even incited police riots. He’s now threatened assault against, well, pretty much everyone in New York. Is there a reason he hasn’t been fired and arrested yet? Right… anyway, someone’s gotta arrest Lynch…
There was a period in the late 19th century or early 20th when there were two police forces in NYC, fighting each other. The second had been organized in order to break the power of the first, which had become a criminal gang. Maybe this’ll happen again. Maybe we can clean the NYPD up without such extreme measures. Either way, Lynch needs to be removed.