President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are "running a revolution," instead of running the government in their unfair criticism of police, says Pat Lynch, president of the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.
"It seems like they're running a revolution rather than running the city or running the country," Lynch said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"You need to say you've got to respect your police officers, and to your children, don't put yourself in a position to hang around with people that will draw the attention of police officers.
"It's your actions that lead to interaction with the police, not what you look like."
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The powerful police union boss came out swinging against allegations of racism and excessive force that have been lodged against the NYPD in the case of Eric Garner. Garner, an obese man with respiratory problems, was selling loose cigarettes on the street when he was confronted by cops. He died of a heart attack after a police takedown, in which many described Officer Daniel Pantaleo as employing a chokehold as Garner gasped "I can't breathe." A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo, despite the medical examiner labeling Garner's death a homicide.
Reaction from Washington and the New York City mayor's office was swift.
Obama said the decision not to indict underlined the need for increased efforts to improve relationships between cops and communities of color. Holder is beefing up restrictions on racial and other forms of profiling by federal law enforcement.
De Blasio — who is white, and married to Chirlane McCray, who is African-American — infuriated cops by saying he worries about the safety of his mixed-race son Dante in interactions with police, just like parents of other black children.
"[He's] a good, young man, law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong," de Blasio said. "And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, 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."
But Lynch insisted to Steve Malzberg that in no way does Garner's death have a racial element to it.
"We have a majority, minority police department here. We're out there doing the job color blind, the way we're supposed to do it and we get no credit for it," he said.
"You have the whole grand jury, mixed-race grand jury, mixed-gender grand jury … [looking] at just the evidence, not the emotion of the street.
"No one will dispute it's a terrible tragedy when there's a loss of life and we don't just say that, we mean that. We're police officers, we go out to preserve life."
Lynch said Pantaleo "absolutely [did] not" employ a chokehold on Garner — a 43-year-old father of six — but, rather, used a standard takedown maneuver.
"The medical examiner's report, had he died from a chokehold or a choke, would have [said] asphyxiation. That's not what he passed away from. There were other factors that led to his death that day.
"Now we're questioning the grand jury, even though they actually looked at the facts and we didn't.... It's a textbook take down maneuver taught in the police academy."
Lynch has contempt for the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has promised more protests, saying:
"Marches and boycotts led to the '64 Civil Rights Act" — even though Garner's widow Esaw said she didn't believe her husband's death was an issue of black or white.
"Al Sharpton tries to exploit every tragedy and he takes regular working folks and he tries to go in there and bring his advisers in," Lynch said.
"But here's a woman saying I don't think it was a black and white thing, and you know what? It wasn't. It was the community calling, saying there's a problem on this corner and the police officers responding.
"It wasn't just one call. It was multiple calls, multiple complaints. They came to the community council meetings and complained. We can't pick and choose where we go and we also can't walk away."
Lynch added there was a female African-American sergeant on the scene who could have stopped the takedown at any time.
"There were supervisors there. What's also getting lost is that there were conversations first. They didn't leap right into this. We're talking about a person that's been arrested for this infraction before," Lynch said.
De Blasio's comments, he said, "infuriated every police officer. That's the point where he threw us under the bus. When in reality, millions of children in the city of New York each and every day go to sleep safe because of police officers.
"His son, my son, all of our sons and daughters come home in safety because of police officers. We should be afraid of the criminals.
"It's the police officers that literally, literally stand between the criminal element and the good citizens of the city.... He should be saying we should be afraid of the criminal [and] run towards the cops if you need help."
Lynch said the police have made New York City a much safer place to be.
"We can’t forget what it was like just a few short years ago, quite honestly, where you couldn't be safely on the streets in many of our neighborhoods," he said.
Citing the decrease in crime and the increase in property values in some of the city's once plagued neighborhoods Lynch said, "Now, because of the work of New York City police officers, our members can't afford to live in those same neighborhoods. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I stood on the corner in full-battle regalia.... Now our members can't afford to live there."
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