Police To Take Extra Precautions; NYPD Killings Raise Police-Mayor Tension
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: I have, throughout my public life, expressed tremendous respect for the NYPD. It's very well documented. I will continue to. I also think in a democracy that people express their desire for a more fair society and that's right and proper as well, but they must do it peacefully. There can be no violence and certainly there can be no violence against those who protect us and who represent our society. The police are our protectors and they must be respected as such.</s>KAYE: The New York mayor Bill de Blasio is facing harsh criticism in the wake of the two slain police officers. Members of the NYPD turning their backs on him, accusing him of having blood on his hands. This morning, an op-ed in "The New York Times" is calling those remarks slander and encouraging more protests. The editorial board writing, quote, "The protesters and their defenders, including Mayor de Blasio, need offer no apologies for denouncing misguided and brutal police tactics and deploring the evident injustice of the deaths of unarmed black men like Eric Garner." The op-ed went on to say all of this mayoral mistrust is clouding the real tragedy at hand, and as CNN's Miguel Marquez reports, it is a distrust that has been building now for years.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A shocking moment, as New York Mayor Bill de Blasio entered the hospital Saturday where the mortally injured officers were taken, fellow police turned their backs on him, a powerful and divisive message to the mayor of this major city who has lost their trust. Noel Leader (ph) was a New York City cop for 20 years.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never seen hostilities this heightened before in my career.</s>MARQUEZ: One NYPD union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, has been withering in its attacks on de Blasio.</s>PATRICK LYNCH, NYC PBA: There's blood on many hands tonight, that blood on the hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.</s>MARQUEZ: He and his organization representing beat cops blame the mayor for the way he's handled recent protests. The lack of indictment of police in the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, first set off angry protests here.</s>PROTESTERS: What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!</s>MARQUEZ: They grew angrier. A handful of protesters actually calling for the killing of police after a jury in New York failed to indict police over the killing of Eric Garner after he was stopped for selling loose cigarettes. In the midst of the protest firestorm, de Blasio shared his feelings about talking to his own mixed race son about how he should deal with police.</s>MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: 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.</s>MARQUEZ: But perhaps what angered police most, protesters given free reign of the city for several nights and one incident, several protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge physically assaulted an NYPD officer. So upset over the mayor's handling of the protests, on December 12th, well before these current killings, the Police Benevolent Association asked officers to sign a letter to the mayor, asking him not to attend funerals of officers in the event they were killed on duty.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When an individual who is the executive of the city does not have the cooperation of his own police force, it puts the citizens at a dangerous place, and when you hear some of the rhetoric by the union president that, only raises the level of frustration.</s>MARQUEZ: Tension between police and de Blasio started before he took office in January, over New York's stop and frisk policy. At its height in 2011, nearly 700,000 New Yorkers stopped for so- called suspicious behavior, 87 percent of them black or Latino. De Blasio made ending the policy a cornerstone of his campaign.</s>DE BLASIO: I believe that the long-term security needs of the city require moving away from the overuse of stop and frisk.</s>MARQUEZ: The practice ended by a federal judge in 2013, and supported by the new De Blasio administration, has been a sore point for police and its unions, who view the practice as successful in curbing crime here and preventing everything from petty crime to terrorism in the future. Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.</s>KAYE: And we will talk to a former New York City police commissioner about how he would resolve these tensions, coming your way next.