The president of a union representing New York State troopers said Friday that New York City’s restrictions on police officers are setting the men and women on the force up for failure.
“By raising the bar and almost making it impossible for my members to safely arrest, we’ve had enough. I want them out,” New York State Troopers PBA President Thomas Mungeer told “Fox & Friends.”
“What has me alarmed is that troopers that are trained in certain tactics to arrest violent people can now be arrested for using those tactics within the five counties of New York City. Those tactics are still legal in the other 57 counties that make up New York state,” Mungeer said.
Mungeer called earlier this week for troopers to be pulled from any posts in New York City, citing concerns about police legislation signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday afternoon.
The legislation “puts an undue burden upon our Troopers,” Mungeer wrote. “It opens them up to criminal and civil liability for restraining a person during a lawful arrest in a manner that is consistent with their training and is legal throughout the rest of the State. Furthermore, this legislation will prevent Troopers from safely and effectively arresting resistant subjects.”
Administrative Code section 10-18, makes it a misdemeanor crime for an arresting officer to restrain someone “in a manner that restricts the flow of air or blood by compressing the windpipe or the carotid arteries on each side of the neck, or sitting, kneeling, or standing on the chest or back in a manner that compresses the diaphragm, in the course of effecting or attempting to effect an arrest,” according to the bill.
Some members of the New York Police Department, including NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan, have also taken issue particularly with the second portion of the bill, which references the placing of pressure on an individual’s chest or back.
Mungeer said Friday that the city has made it “extremely tough to arrest a violent person.”
“In the end, my troops could be held criminally liable or similarly liable for the way they’re trained or acting the way they’re trained,” Mungeer said.
“It’s unbelievable that one of my troopers can pursue someone down the New York state freeway, then that car can stop on the New York City border: one set of arrest tactics can be used at the bumper of the car and that person is out and acting violently and another set of the rules have to be used at the front bumper of that car depending on where they are at the city border. You just can’t have two sets of rules in a state.”
*story by Fox News