NYC Mayor Calls for Protests to Stop Until Funerals are Over
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: I'm asking everyone, this is across the spectrum, to put aside protests, put aside demonstrations, until these funerals are passed, let's focus just on these families and what they have lost.</s>CAMEROTA: That was New York Mayor Bill de Blasio calling for a break from protests, following a deadly ambush on two police officers. This as a new CNN/ORC poll underscores the challenges facing the country. According to the poll, this was conducted before Saturday's shooting, nonwhites feel that 42 percent of police officers in their neighborhoods are prejudiced against blacks, but whites feel that only 17 percent of officers are prejudiced. What can be done to bridge this gap? Let's bring in CNN political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast", John Avlon, and ABC News contributor and retired New York City police detective, Nicholas Casale. Great to see you, guys.</s>JOHN AVLON, THE DAILY BEAST: Good morning.</s>NICHOLAS CASALE, ABC NEWS: Good morning.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. Can we talk about Bill de Blasio's speech, John, yesterday? Was he overcompensation as having been seen as siding with the protesters? Now he's saying no more protests, no more demonstrations, is that the right tone?</s>AVLON: It's a tone he needed to say, and yes, he was overcompensating, because he's been more closely affiliated with the protesters than he has with the police over the course of his term, not just the past few weeks. So, he's calling essentially for a truce until the funerals. It's a right thing to do. It's an attempt to reset relations.</s>CAMEROTA: Is it? I mean, is that the right thing to say -- put aside your First Amendment right, put aside your freedom of expression? How about just, hey, guys can protest peacefully, but if anybody lay as hand on a police officer, the full extent of the law will come down on you?</s>AVLON: The problem is that the protests have gotten out of hand. And again, this administration has close relations with the protesters and protest groups than they do with the police. So, that's the nature of the wedge right here. It's a persistent distrust between the police and this mayor. So, in an attempt to say the extremes on both sides are using overheated rhetoric, very centrist language. We need a truce, a time out effectively to cool down and put the focus on the families. Those are the right things to do. The question is, is it too little too late to repair relations especially with the police which is going to need --</s>CAMEROTA: Nick, what do you want to hear, as a former police detective, from the mayor?</s>CASALE: I think the mayor had the opportunity to bridge the divide and has -- he has lost did. You know when you look at the both the unions, police officers union saying do not attend the funeral. And you look at the mayor looking to make sound bytes about the funerals, you have to realize this -- the funeral is out of respect to the memories of Police Officer Liu and Ramos and their families.</s>CAMEROTA: So, that means the mayor shouldn't go to it?</s>CASALE: No, the mayor should go to the funeral. The mayor as the chief executive should be at the funeral. I think anybody who disrupts the funeral is a person that's saying I, me, my, and they are discounting the suffering that those families are going through.</s>CAMEROTA: But you say that the mayor had a chance to bridge the divide? What would do that had sounded like? What should he be saying?</s>CASALE: Look, the mayor appeased to his constituency and he has every right to, but as a police officer, you're always taught give everybody 100 percent. If you want to give somebody else 110 percent, that's fine. But everybody should get a 100 percent. Where the mayor has failed, mostly through I believe inexperience and immaturity is that the mayor listened to his constituency that got him elected, but he didn't give 100 percent to the police, he sold them short. And equally, what I called for in my piece was I believe that President Obama also had the opportunity, starting in Ferguson, to bridge the divide.</s>CAMEROTA: And say what?</s>CASALE: To say we must come together. And I think that President Obama, if he had a little more common sense, he'll be at the funeral of two police officers.</s>CAMEROTA: John -- oh, you think he should go. OK, John, go.</s>AVLON: You know, whether you think the president should go, and I do think this is something that happens, the assassination of these two officers, as Eric Holder called it yesterday, happens at a time when we're having deep debates about the need to reform police. And the CNN poll that shows the stark racial gap about --</s>CAMEROTA: Let's pull it up so people can see how blacks perceive police being much more prejudiced than whites believe. So, go ahead.</s>AVLON: The point here is if there's a differentiation and experience among nonwhite communities and white communities, and current attitudes about the police, but it occurs during a time of record low crime. The resurgence we've seen in New York City here in terms of people being able to live and move and thrive in many outer boroughs is due to a dramatic, historic decrease in crime, which is due to the cops, not the politicians. The problem what de Blasio's in right now, is that he's been seen as being closer to the protesters and Al Sharpton, than the cops who really created the context for citywide success. And in his heart, he is much more ideological and a political operative than he is an executive and most mayors are nonpartisan problem-solvers and he is very partisan, and he's much more of an ideologue.</s>CAMEROTA: So, what does he do now, given that the city is now in this crisis?</s>AVLON: He's got to try to rise above it, he's got to re-center himself, but he's got to be more than rhetoric. He's got to show in actions that he cares as much about the cops on the front lines and he's got their backs. And that's got to talk, be a lot more than words, it's got to be actions over a sustained period, because his success as mayor, any success as mayor, is built on the back of the cops who keep the city safe.</s>CAMEROTA: And, Detective, what does that look like? Should he have gone ride-alongs with the police? Should he walk the streets with police? How can he truly embrace the police?</s>CASALE: Before he does any of that, he has to start off with apologizing to the police and that's going to be the first step. The second step is that the police aren't the cure-all of society. I mean, violence, poverty, racism, handguns, these are not addressed by the police. These are addressed by legislators. You need change. And if de Blasio wants to save his administration from being a one- term run, he's going to have to look at these. And he cannot look at the police as the absolute cure. The police have lowered crime substantially, starting with Mayor Giuliani. Throughout the Bloomberg administration, crime is at an all-time low. So, we have to understand what a cop goes through. And we have to support them. First thing he does -- apologize.</s>CAMEROTA: Nick Casale, John Avlon, thanks so much for your suggestions this morning. Great to see you guys. Chris, back to you.</s>CUOMO: All right. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie demanding Cuba send back an American fugitive who gunned down a state trooper in the '70s. Now, that U.S./Cuba relations appear to be improving, that should be a possibility, right? Not so fast. We'll tell you what Cuba is saying.