De Blasio, NYPD Battle Heats Up
CABRERA: So the mayor of New York was booed just yesterday by cadets at a graduation ceremony at the NYPD Academy. I want you to listen to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd now like to introduce the mayor of the city of New York, the Honorable Bill de Blasio.</s>BILL DE BLASIO, (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Congratulations, officers.</s>CABRERA: Now, that show of disdain toward the mayor follows other public acts of contempt coming from New York police, like the mass turning of backs on the mayor when he was speaking at the funeral of murdered police officer, Rafael Ramos, and similar when the mayor held a news conference following the assassinations of Ramos and Liu. Now today, the editorial board of "The New York Times" called out the police for what it terms disrespectful acts. The editorial's pretty scathing. Here's a sample, and I want to quote for you: "Mr. De Blasio isn't going to say it, but somebody has to. With these acts of passive aggressive contempt and self-pity, many New York police officers, led by their union, are squandering the credibility, defacing its reputation, shredding the hard-earned respect. They have taken the most brave moment, the funeral of a fallen colleague and hijacked it for their own petty look-at-us gesture. Doing so, they also turned their backs on Mr. Ramos' widow, her two young sons, and others in that family." Now Gil Alba is joining me on the phone. He is a former detective with the NYPD. OK, Gil, passive-aggressive, contempt and self-pity. Some tough words aimed at police, especially the union representation. Is this a fair criticism?</s>GIL ALBA, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE (voice-over): Well, I think it should all be turned around and you can almost say the same thing about the mayor. New York City Police Department and, right now, they know, they feel that there's disdain by the mayor against New York City police. So you go to a funeral where two officers were not shot, they were assassinated. They were in a car and they were assassinated. They weren't even supposed to be there. One was overtime, the other, you know, wasn't supposed to be there, but he volunteered. These two, they weren't policing. So every officer feels that could have been them. All the families -- a lot of officers at the funeral are looking at this particular officer and saying this could have been me. And this, they're not turning their back on the officer. Cops saluted that particular person.</s>CABRERA: Let me just jump in here, though. I think, I don't think we're disputing they're necessarily turning their backs on the officer. We're talking about what the dynamics are like between the mayor and the police department and this criticism that police in this situation, in terms of turning their backs and using that forum for a public display against the mayor.</s>ALBA: Well, that's what they say, display against the mayor. One of the officers, one of the brothers were shot and killed and they're respecting them and they don't really believe the mayor's words and they don't trust the mayor's words. So they turned their back on that. One is a statement of here we are at a funeral and it could be us. Turning that around a little bit. It is disrespecting the mayor, and the mayor has to earn that respect.</s>CABRERA: What does the mayor need to do to earn that respect in your mind?</s>ALBA: Well, the mayor needs is to apologize.</s>CABRERA: Why does the mayor need to apologize? Why does the mayor need to apologize?</s>ALBA: Well, it seems the police -- he has shown in many ways. And just saying about the rallies and the demonstrations on the Brooklyn Bridge. He says it was alleged. All that. That's just a couple of the things. In saying all this against the mayor or the police department, practically saying blood is on your hands. Those are his men. He has two police officers in the police department. I'm sure he doesn't want anything to happen to them. However, it's bad enough the mayor or the police, they have to get together. Is it going to be easy? No, but they have to reunite and reunite the city. As you can see what's happening out in New York City, 66 percent on the rest from last year. So that's almost like a demonstration itself. They both really have to get together. I think and I know it could be done.</s>CABRERA: I hear your frustration. We appreciate your opinion. I guess final question, when you look at the bigger picture and the dynamics that are happening and what police officers are doing, the mayor and the dynamics there. There's a clash, but it also underlies the clash that's happening among some members of the community who feel that maybe some members of the police department aren't treating them fairly.</s>CABRERA: Is this a time for New York police to look inside themselves about what maybe needs to happen in terms of reform, as well?</s>ALBA: Well, they've been doing that. But there's good cops and bad cops. I would say a majority are good. But for the bad cop and the incident happened, nobody wants to use police brutality on somebody else. And if they do, they should be out of the police department. You should respect where you work. Respect the people. The more you respect the people, the more respect you return. There's a lot of internal pressures on the cops to give out the rest. All for little things. And this does a lot to the community also, you know, to put against cops. However, the violence and the crime rate in those areas are really low now. New York City's probably one of the safest cities in the world. That's the bottom line is the crime rate. However, yes, there has to be -- there has to be community and the police have to work together without a doubt.</s>CABRERA: Absolutely. I think everybody can agree on that. Gil Alba, thanks for your time.</s>ALBA: Thank you for having me.</s>CABRERA: We're back in a minute.