Police Commissioner Dermot Shea railed against lawmakers Thursday for “going too far” to “handcuff” the NYPD by tapping into anti-cop sentiment from the George Floyd protests to further their own longstanding political agendas.
“I think there is absolutely valid causes about what came out of Minneapolis … but I think that people are using that just cause to advance agendas and agendas that existed long before the incident happened,” Shea said on CNN Thursday morning.
“I think we’ve crossed a tipping point on many levels in terms of taking tools away from the police that maybe these last two months it’s just a completely different situation where it’s a toxic environment,” Shea said, echoing Chief of Department Terence Monahan’s statements Monday.
“There are laws that are handcuffing the police. I think that we have gone too far,” the city’s top cop added.
The strong statements came a day after Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a package of police reforms into law, including a ban on chokeholds — while acknowledging the law would make cops’ jobs harder.
Monahan was among those injured Tuesday when a demonstration turned violent on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The city’s top cop said, though, those supervisors were back at work Thursday trying to supress the gun violence in Brooklyn.
“I just left the CompStat meeting downstairs where the chief, and the lieutenant, two of the four injured, are sitting downstairs talking about shootings in Brooklyn and how do we get dangerous people off the street,” he said.
Shea urged people to forget politics and to focus on public safety amid a surge in shootings citywide.
The city’s top cop also dismissed criticism of disbanding the NYPD’s anti-crime unit in mid-June — calling the knocks “talking points.”
On Monday, Monahan said the disbanding of the unit, which was tasked with getting guns off the street, had a “huge effect” on policing in the city.
*story by The New York Post