New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio should apologize to the Police Department for giving the impression that he supported the anti-police protests leading up to the killing of two NYPD officers, says Rodney Demery, a former Louisiana homicide detective.
Demery told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV on Monday that he agrees with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that de Blasio
should apologize to the NYPD.
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Following the grand jury decision not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner, de Blasio penned an open letter about the decision, in which he invoked concerns he had for his own son, who is biracial, and he urged more training for police officers.
Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association,
the NYPD union, said that "police officers feel like they are being thrown under the bus."
"The fact that the mayor, the current Mayor de Blasio, created such an impression or the appearance that he was on the side of the protesters is probably what made those officers react the way they did, especially at the funeral of the slain officer," Demery explained.
"That's very, very painful for officers to accept, that's one of their own," he said.
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"For the mayor to interject race politics into the debate early on is probably what created that environment," he contends.
"When you lead a police department such as in a position of a mayor and you seem to have a distrust in your own officers and you seem to believe that the protesters were right about the mistreatment that your officers, that you're supposed to be leading . . . it's just not a very good situation to be in, especially for the police officers," the Louisiana police officer added.
Demery is author of
"No Place for Race: Why We Need to Address Economics and Social Factors That Are Crushing Us Every Day".