New York, NY – NYPD Controversies Never Seem to Touch Ray Kelly

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    EPA File New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sits in his SUV near the World Trade Center site in downtown Manhattan on Sept 11 2010. EPA/PETER FOLEYNew York, NY – On Monday afternoon, a few hours after he stood beside Mayor Bloomberg at an anti-gun press conference, then sat in on drums at the West Indian American Day Parade with the NYPD band, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly went to find Jumaane Williams.

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    Williams, a 35-year-old, African-American councilman with long dreadlocks and an earring, had been handcuffed near the West Indian Day Parade, along with Kirsten John Foy, a top aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. The two had been arrested after a dispute with officers over whether they had the requisite ID to cross a “frozen zone” on their way to the Brooklyn Museum.

    “The commissioner came to where we were, actually, after we were released to personally find out what happened,” Williams said at a press conference the next day. “I’m not sure if he said exactly it was wrong, but he did seem very apologetic that it occurred.”

    “I talked to him,” Kelly said to an impromptu gaggle of reporters at a separate event. “I got their version of what happened. I said that we would do an investigation. I spoke to the councilman. I spoke to Mr. Foy. I spoke to the Council speaker. I spoke to the public advocate.”

    In the past 10 years, that kind of aggressive, self-assured outreach, combined with Kelly’s personable affect, has improved the police department’s image. Kelly’s NYPD, like Kelly himself, has shown itself to be a force capable of preserving (and even improving upon) Giuliani-era crime rates without alienating half the city in the process.

    But Kelly, 70, has actually managed something even more impressive when it comes to his own reputation, accruing credit over the last decade for the department’s many successes—including a drastic drop in murders and, more conspicuously, a complete absence of terror attacks—while remaining personally, politically immune to the inevitable problems of the country’s largest police force.

    Nothing, it seems, can touch Ray Kelly.

    The morning after the parade incident, at a crowded, rainy press conference atop the steps of City Hall, Williams held up grainy posterboards that appeared to show NYPD officers menacing the two men. One by one, nearly a dozen speakers—including no fewer than four likely 2013 mayoral candidates—criticized the police department for a stop-and-frisk policy they said promotes an institutional culture of racism. Williams accused the department of a “bald-faced lie” for claiming that an officer had been punched during the incident, as alleged in a statement the night before from Kelly’s spokesman and top aide, Paul Browne.

    But none of the speakers blamed Ray Kelly

    Read more at Capital New York


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    2 Comments
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    TheRealJoe123
    TheRealJoe123
    12 years ago

    Why am I not surprised that my Congresswomen said these words “You can’t characterize someone overall, when their performance has been one that has been impressive,” she said afterward. “There have been great things, particularly in light of 9/11, that the commissioner has been able to do. He has had a distinguished career in public service. However, the racial profiling, whether it’s in the Muslim community or in the black community, I mean come on. This is not Texas.” I am no big fan of Ray Kelly or Bloomberg but to mention Texas as if its a third world dictatorship shows a lack of respect for fellow Americans and in a way its borderline raciest

    Voice-of-Reason
    Voice-of-Reason
    12 years ago

    It has been my experience that the NYPD doesn’t respect the citizens it is paid to protect.