New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's aides reportedly urged Democratic lawmakers to rebuke the mayor's most strident police union critic – even as the mayor himself was coaxing law enforcement unions to meet with him to mend a growing rift.
The "cold calls" went out to the Democratic delegation of city and state elected officials Monday, asking that they castigate Patrolmen's Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch and officers who've twice turned their backs on de Blasio over his perceived anti-police views and policies,
DNAinfo reports.
"City Hall wanted me to blast the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association for turning their backs on him," an unnamed legislator told the news website.
"They called up Monday, said they were calling all of us, and that it was our obligation to stand up defending the mayor."
He added it was his perception City Hall expected compliance – "because they were calling, that we should do whatever they ask," DNAinfo reports.
A second lawmaker who also received a call told the website he didn't feel pressured to speak out against police protests, though he didn't condone the disrespect.
Still, the lawmaker told DNA info he thought it was "really inappropriate" to be asked.
"I think the mayor should not find himself in that position, particularly on an issue that is so sensitive, asking elected officials to chime in on something like this," he said.
"It is not really appropriate and I felt badly that they had to do it."
The
public show of disdain for de Blasio came immediately after the assassinations of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on Dec. 20, when Lynch and other officers at a Brooklyn hospital turned their backs on the mayor when he showed up to meet with the slain officers' families.
Then last Saturday, a contingent of officers also turned their backs on the mayor's eulogy as it was broadcast on a Jumbotron outside
Ramos's funeral.
Police union bosses have been angry over de Blasio's perceived anti-police position following the no-indictment decision of a grand jury in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, and his kid-glove treatment of Garner protesters, DNAinfo reports.
"The mayor’s people said that this had nothing to do with politics, so I said, 'then what is the purpose of this call?’” one of the lawmakers told DNAinfo.
On Sunday, the mayor had called police union leaders asking that they attend a meeting Tuesday aimed at addressing the rift.
De Blasio's press secretary Phil Walzak told DNAinfo that City Hall aides "did not ask elected officials to 'attack' anyone," and only requested they "support the families" of the slain NYPD officers.
One of the lawmakers countered Walzak's claim was "preposterous" and "not reality," DNAinfo reports.
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