New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is "not doing an appropriate job" with the city's police department because he's "much too involved in the operations of the department," Ray Kelly, the longest-serving police commissioner in the city's history, said on Newsmax TV's "Greg Kelly Reports" Tuesday.
"The other day, two days ago at a press conference, he said he was on the phone with the police commissioner 50 times during the day," Kelly told Newsmax TV host Greg Kelly, who is also the former commissioner's son. "If your boss is talking to you 50 times during the work day, that's an awful lot of micromanaging."
Dermot Shea, the department's police commissioner, is an experienced law enforcement executive and he has an experienced team, Kelly said, so de Blasio has to got to let them do their job.
"My sense is that is much too much of management going on from city hall," said Kelly. "I understand the whole concept of stability control, but come on? Fifty times in one work day? That's not productive. That's not a good relationship."
Meanwhile, protests over the death of George Floyd are hitting the city, and Kelly noted that as during the Eric Garner case, demonstrators were allowed to take over FDR Drive, a major thoroughfare, and that was a wrong decision.
"Nothing good comes from giving into these types of demands from protesters," Kelly said.
Meanwhile, pictures and video are coming out nationwide showing police officers marching and kneeling with protesters, and Kelly said while such actions aren't deterring looters, "the optics are probably good."
"Police agencies today are so much more sensitive into the relationship with the community, and I think this is a manifestation of that, so I don't see a downside," said Kelly.
He also noted that New York's police department is very diverse, and that might come as a surprise to some protesters.
"The NYPD has police officers who were born in 106 countries and they speak well over 70 languages," said Kelly. "It's surprising to a lot of people when they hear that."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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