Mayor Bill de Blasio's relationship with New York City's police force was destined to be rocky. He took office promising to overhaul how the city's 36,000 officers interacted with the public, especially people of color.
But Blasio's handling of one such interaction — the 2014 police killing of Eric Garner — permanently poisoned his standing not only with officers, but also many of the police reform activists who helped get him elected.
The ill will on both sides was apparent again Monday, when the department, after five years of delays, fired the officer who used a banned chokehold to wrestle Garner to the ground during an arrest over alleged sales of untaxed cigarettes.
Reform advocates welcomed the decision, but criticized de Blasio for allowing Officer Daniel Pantaleo to remain on the force for years after video showed Garner gasping "I can't breathe" as the officer cut off his airflow.
The head of the city's largest police union, meanwhile, angrily declared that officers had been "abandoned" by a mayor and police commissioner who are "absolutely afraid of the criminal advocates."
"The leadership has abandoned ship and left our police officers on the street alone, without backing," said Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, standing in front of a police department flag that had been hung upside down.
Neither criticism is new for de Blasio, who is now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
Chants of "Fire Pantaleo !" interrupted de Blasio at a Democratic candidate presidential debate late last month in Detroit. The same chants rang out two days later at City Hall as de Blasio spoke to reporters after a police department administrative judge, in a precursor to Monday's decision, recommended that Pantaleo lose his job.
And police union criticism of de Blasio dates back to before his election, but hit a fever pitch in December of 2014, when two officers were killed by a disturbed gunman angry about police killings of unarmed black men. Lynch at the time said City Hall had "blood on his hands," and some officers began turning their backs on the mayor when he spoke at police funerals.
The police unions, angry with de Blasio over myriad issues including officers' pay, have chased him around the country on the presidential campaign with mobile billboards and newspaper ads.
Since taking office, de Blasio has tried to walk a line between promising reforms — like ending a police tactic of stopping and searching huge numbers of mostly black and Hispanic men for weapons — and assuring rank-and-file police officers that they have his support.
The mayor tried again after Police Commissioner James O'Neill announced that Pantaleo had been fired, saying he thought the NYPD had changed "profoundly" since Garner's death, and that its officers were people who had made "a good and noble choice to serve others, to protect others."
"To our officers - a simple statement: We need you and we need you to build deeper trust with all the people you serve," he said, "Because that is not only the right thing to do, it is the best way to keep everyone safe, officers and civilians alike."
In the initial aftermath of Garner's death, de Blasio spoke critically of the officers involved. He called bystander video of the confrontation between the white officers and Garner, who was black, "very troubling" and "very sad to watch."
Then, in a move that upset Garner's family and police reform activists, the city held off on any potential police department punishment for the officers, other than desk duty, while federal prosecutors conducted a lengthy civil rights investigation.
"He's been trying to have both sides of it," Iona College political science professor Jeanne Zaino said of de Blasio. "He again appears to be two-faced."
"As mayor of New York City, it is incredibly important that he's supportive of law enforcement and the work that they're doing. And yet, by the same token, he has run against them and wants to continue running against them not just for mayor but nationally."
In a one-two punch soon into his tenure, de Blasio boosted his bona fides with reformers by dropping the city's appeal to a ruling that curbed officers' use of "stop and frisk," tactics.
Then he irritated the reformers with an old-school choice for police commissioner: Bill Bratton, who previously held the job in the mid-1990s under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, and is credited with popularizing a strategy of cracking down on minor offenses as a way of ensuring public order.
"In spite of the fact that de Blasio in many ways won his election arguably on a police reform platform, he has not really done the meaningful reforms that need to happen," said Joo-Hyun Kang, the director of Communities United for Police Reform. "He's actually been an obstructionist more than someone who was actually championing change."
Pantaleo's lawyer and his union, contend that the officer won on the evidence at a seven-day department disciplinary trial, but political pressure made his firing inevitable. They have promised a legal challenge to his firing.
Pantaleo's firing Monday came at a time when de Blasio was already under fire from police unions for his response to recent videos posted on social media showing people pouring buckets of water on uniformed patrol officers.
De Blasio called the soakings "unacceptable," but union officials said that police reform policies of de Blasio and other liberal politicians had created a climate of disrespect for officers on the beat.
President Donald Trump tweeted that the mayor needed to "STAND UP for those who protect our lives and serve us all so well." The mayor fired back: "Crime's gone down year after year in New York City and it's not just because you finally left town."
Follow Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and Tom Hays at twitter.com/APtomhays
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space, calling it “a dirty spectacle” that cherry picks weapons of mass destruction from all other weapons that should also be banned.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13 in favor, Russia opposed and China abstaining.
The resolution would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia, and to agree to the need to verify compliance.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.
“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” she asked. “It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.
Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”
The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.
The U.S. opposed the amendment, and after the vote Nebenzia addressed the U.S. ambassador saying: “We want a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space, not just WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). But you don’t want that. And let me ask you that very same question. Why?”
He said much of the U.S. and Japan’s actions become clear “if we recall that the U.S. and their allies announced some time ago plans to place weapons … in outer space.”
Nebenzia accused the U.S. of blocking a Russian-Chinese proposal since 2008 for a treaty against putting weapons in outer space.
Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of undermining global treaties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, irresponsibly invoking “dangerous nuclear rhetoric,” walking away from several of its arms control obligations, and refusing to engage “in substantive discussions around arms control or risk reduction.”
She called Wednesday’s vote “a real missed opportunity to rebuild much-needed trust in existing arms control obligations.”
Thomas-Greenfield’s announcement of the resolution on March 18 followed White House confirmation in February that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.
Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the U.S.
Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that the world is just beginning to understand “the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space.”
It could destroy “thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend on,” she said.
The defeated draft resolution said “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.” It would have urged all countries carrying out activities in exploring and using outer space to comply with international law and the U.N. Charter.
The draft would have affirmed that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations not to put in orbit around the Earth “any objects” with weapons of mass destruction, or install them “on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space.”
The treaty, ratified by some 114 countries, including the U.S. and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”
The draft resolution emphasized “the necessity of further measures, including political commitments and legally binding instruments, with appropriate and effective provisions for verification, to prevent an arms race in outer space in all its aspects.”
It reiterated that the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, has the primary responsibility to negotiate agreements on preventing an arms race in outer space.
The 65-nation body has achieved few results and has largely devolved into a venue for countries to voice criticism of others’ weapons programs or defend their own. The draft resolution would have urged the conference “to adopt and implement a balanced and comprehensive program of work.”
At the March council meeting where the U.S.-Japan initiative was launched, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”
He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”
“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.
United States Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses members of the U.N. Security Council before voting during a meeting on Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
FILE - U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks on Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Tokyo. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday, April 24, 2024, on a resolution announced by Thomas-Greenfield, calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space. It is likely to be vetoed by Russia. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)
