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Should Mayor De Blasio Apologize to the NYPD?

On the night the Eric Garner decision was announced, Mayor Bill de Blasio repeated a mantra of the protest movement, "black lives matter," and said he warned his biracial son about interacting with police.
Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association

On the night the Eric Garner decision was announced, Mayor Bill de Blasio repeated a mantra of the protest movement, "black lives matter," and said he warned his biracial son about interacting with police.

That pissed the NYPD and the police unions off.

Edward Mullins, the president of the Sergeants' Benevolent Association
Edward Mullins, the president of the Sergeants' Benevolent Association

Edward Mullins, president of the Sergeants' Benevolent Association, called the mayor's statement, "moronic;" and then Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, blamed de Blasio for creating an atmosphere that led a mentally unstable 28-year-old man to murder two NYPD officers in December.

As a consequence of the union bosses' positions, hundreds of police officers three times have turned their backs on the mayor publicly-- two of those times being at the funerals of the slain officers-- and the rift between the mayor and police has been growing ever since.

Most recently, on Monday, Mullins said he wanted "some type of apology" from de Blasio, in the wake of the widening divide. Even some top officials for the mayor are asking him to contrite.

But the mayor said Wednesday afternoon, he would not apologize to the union leaders. What was in the past, has passed, and he wants to focus on healing and moving forward, the New York Observer reports.

However, during a Wednesday, closed-door meeting between the police commissioner and the leaders of the city's five police unions, tensions flared again and nothing was resolved. Lynch dismissed any presence of a work slow down from his officers and continued to lay blame at the feet of the mayor:

"Our members are doing their job," Lynch said in a statement endorsed by the other four police union leaders. "The other solutions will come from the leaders here. We wish there was a leader in City Hall."

Do you feel the police unions are being unreasonable and the mayor should stick to his guns and not concede? Or do you think, as Mayor of New York City, de Blasio should be the bigger person, apologize and takes steps to bridge the divide?




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