Maybe. I submit that the mayor of New York cannot govern the city without the support of the police. Does Bill de Blasio have that support? Consider this exchange, overheard yesterday at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn:
De Blasio: “We’re all in this together.”
Unnamed police officer: “No we’re not.”
This was after police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, shot by a crazed black Muslim named Ismaaiyl Brinsley, had been pronounced dead but before the mayor and his entourage made their way through a hospital corridor jammed with police who turned their backs on the mayor, shunning him.
On December 3, in the aftermath of the death of Eric Garner, who died of a heart attack after resisting arrest, the mayor held a press conference and told the world that he worried that his biracial son Dante might be the victim of police brutality. “I’ve had to worry over the years,” de Blasio said. “Is Dante safe each night? And not just from some of the painful realities of crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods but safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors.”
Ten days later the mayor was back in front of the microphone praising the anti-cop protestors in New York for being peaceful. That was the protest at which one could hear this chanted refrain:
“What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!”
They got their wish.
It was during that pacific event that two police lieutenants were, as the New York Post reported, viciously attacked by a mob. The mayor described the attack as “an incident . . . in which a small group of protesters allegedly assaulted some members of the NYPD.”
“Allegedly.”
Officers Ramos and Liu were murdered Saturday at about 3:00 in the afternoon in Brooklyn. That night in Ferguson, Mo., where the thug Michael Brown was killed by a policeman after he tried to grab his gun, protestors were caught on video gleefully chanting “pigs in a blanket.” Also that night, police went to East 140th Street in New York after getting a report that a man was shooting out windows. As the Post reports: “They spotted the suspect, Raymond Leonardo, 17, and ordered him to drop the gun. Instead, he took aim at one of the officers and pulled the trigger two times, officials said.” Fortunately, Leonardo had already used all his bullets and the police were able to apprehend him.
Former Governor George Pataki summed up my feelings with this Tweet: “Sickened by these barbaric acts, which sadly are a predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric of #ericholder & #mayordeblasio.”
Will de Blasio be able to continue as mayor? I think it’s an open question. Even as I write, the news has come in that an Orlando police officer has been shot and killed. It’s not clear at this point whether that incident was related to the wave of anti-police sentiment that has been fanned by hucksters like Eric Holder, Bill de Blasio, and Obama’s confidante Al Sharpton, who has been a visitor to the White House 61 times since 2009.
Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new era of racial harmony. How’s that working out? About as well as his prediction that future generations would look back on his nomination as the moment when “the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Bill de Blasio is political fallout from the rise of Obama. It’s unclear at this point how de Blasio will fare. It depends partly on how angry the police are, partly on how the major media decide to cover news of his relations with protestors and the police. I suspect that both men are just about to learn that it is one thing to start a revolution, quite another to control it. Unfortunately, we will be the ones to bear the brunt of this difficult lesson.
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