New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio slammed a New York City Police Department union president who has been critical of his leadership.
“The Sergeants Benevolent Association has only practiced division. They foment hatred. … They do not try to help us move forward,” de Blasio said during a press conference Thursday. “They don’t try to create anything good. I have no respect for the leadership of the SBA.”
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The president of the SBA, Ed Mullins, openly criticized de Blasio on social media following a surge in shootings, uptick in overall crime, slashing of the police budget, disbanding of the city’s plainclothes unit, and violent protests and riots following the death of George Floyd on May 25.
“There’s protests throughout the city almost every single year, like Occupy Wall Street,” Mullins said last month. “But in my 16 years, this is, by far, probably the worst I’ve seen from upper management.”
“Honestly, we feel alone out there. You go out and spend 17 hours on this day, and then you check your phone, and you have certain members of Congress, the governor, the mayor, and they’re saying that we’re not doing a good job.”
Other union officials have lashed out against the way the media and city leadership have treated the police, including New York Police Benevolent Association President Mike O’Meara, who said the police are being treated like “animals.”
“We all read in the paper all week that, in the black community, mothers are worried about their children getting home from school without being killed by a cop,” O’Meara said last month. “What world are we living in? That does not happen! It does not happen. I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. He killed someone. We didn’t.”
“Everybody’s trying to shame us. Legislators. The press. Everybody’s trying to shame us into being embarrassed of our profession,” he said. “You know what? This badge isn’t stained by someone in Minneapolis. It’s still got a shine on it, and so do theirs.”
