The incredible chutzpah of Jumaane Williams’ complaint about an NYPD ‘slowdown’
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams last week wrote Police Commissioner Dermot Shea demanding answers about “rumors” that the NYPD “is taking part in a deliberate slowdown,” implying that this is the explanation for the “horrific rise in shootings across every borough.”
What effing chutzpah.
Williams has devoted much of his career to handcuffing the NYPD. As a blistering critic of stop-and-frisk, he led the City Council to pass the Community Safety Act in 2013 over then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s veto, installing an Inspector General over the department and creating a “ban on racial profiling” — one in a long series of police “reforms,” all authored or backed by Williams, that leave officers second-guessing their every move, with ever-growing fears that their lives will be ruined simply because they did their jobs in a way that doesn’t meet standards that ignore street reality.
The capper was the new law that criminalizes not just police use of “chokeholds,” but a large variety of physical contact with a perp — even one violently resisting arrest.
Last month, as the council moved to “defund the NYPD,” Williams threatened to block city property-tax collections if he didn’t think the cuts were deep enough. Then he complained that a budget that eliminated the entire next NYPD class of recruits to shrink the force by 1,000-plus still allowed for a chance of hiring new cops.
Beat officers, especially, have gotten the message: Avoid trouble.
Don’t act on any mere suspicion or instinct to check out possible criminal activity. Leave the obvious gang-bangers alone — the gangs all have lawyers ready to make your life hell. Beware of any physical contact. Unless explicitly ordered, stay out of areas where a crowd might surround you screaming the instant you try to act on a clear violation.
“Deliberate slowdown,” Mr. Advocate? No, this is the result of your deliberate demands — the end of the aggressive policing that you’ve been complaining about non-stop for the last decade.
You got exactly what you wished for, Jumaane — and the whole city’s paying the price.
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