Commissioner Bratton excoriated on opposition to police reform legistaltion in City Council
In response to comments NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton made at a Harvard Club breakfast November 17, Communities United for Police Reform released the following statement from spokesperson Monifa Bandele.
Democracy and legislative oversight may be inconvenient for Mr. Bratton’s dictatorial wants, but as the appointee of an elected official within that system of government he must respect them.
His personal and unprofessional attack against the elected representatives of New Yorkers demonstrates an unwillingness to debate on the actual substance of policy reforms, which have been recommended as best practice by a national task force on policing led by police chiefs and criminal justice experts from across the country.
His diversionary attack doesn’t change the fact that the Right to Know Act is also supported by a majority in the City Council, New Yorkers most impacted by abusive, discriminatory policing in communities across the city, dozens of rabbis and faith leaders, LGBTQ organizations, and community groups that hold New York City’s neighborhoods together.
If the police commissioner’s condescending language, tone and opposition to reforms supported by communities represents the de Blasio administration’s effort to bring police and community together, then the city is clearly moving in the wrong direction.