General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExposed: How Republicans and Cops Are TEAMING UP To TAKE DOWN DeBLASIO
When hundreds of cops from around the country and as far away as Canada turned their backs on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos, the NYPD officer shot to death alongside his partner Wenjian Liu by a deranged gunman, they fired the first salvo in a carefully coordinated political operation aimed at discrediting the liberal mayor and shattering the ongoing anti-police brutality protest movement. AlterNet has obtained emails revealing plans to organize a series of anti-de Blasio protests around the city until the summer of 2015. Billed as a non-partisan movement in support of the men and women of the NYPD, the protests are being orchestrated by a cast of NYPD union bosses and local Republican activists allied with Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor who recently called on de Blasio to say youre sorry to [NYPD officers] for having created a false impression of them. The first rally is planned to take place at Queens Borough Hall at noon on January 13.
Joe Concannon, a failed Republican State Senate candidate and current president of the Tea Party-aligned Queens Village Republican Club, is the main organizer of the burgeoning anti-de Blasio protest effort. The retired NYPD captain and former Giuliani advisor is a close ally of Patrolmens Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch. Lynch generated national headlines and cheers from rank and file cops when he claimed that de Blasio has blood on [his] hands just hours after Ismaaiyl Brinsley murdered Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. In an email exchange with a supporter, Concannon said he and his allies had filed papers to found a non-profit to fund the anti-de Blasio campaign. The January 13 Queens demonstration would be among the largest, according to Concannon. Major rallies in March in Breezy Point, Queens and at City Hall were also in the works, he said. In a separate email dated December 26 and titled, Support Your Police rallies, Concannon declared the onset of a campaign he dubbed Operation All Out. Everyone MUST get out and support these fine men and women, he implored several NYPD associates. Jack Coughlin, the treasurer of the NYPD Superior Officers Association, responded by proposing a rally held in Breezy Point in March when the weather will be better [that] could attract thousands of pro-cop supporters to counter the professional anti-cop organizers. Coughlin went on to urge Concannon to pressure Republican representatives Peter King and Lee Zeldin and NY GOP State Chairman Ed Cox to get the House Homeland Committee to hold public hearings on who's financing Al Sharpton's anti-cop protest.
National Police Defense Foundation executive director Joseph Occhipinti chimed in to offer help in coordinating the demonstrations. I would suggest that everything go through the [Patrick Lynchs Patrolmens Benevolent Association] for any organized protests, he added. A former agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Occhipinti was convicted in 1991 of conducting illegal searches and narrowly escaped jail time for allegedly stealing $16,000 from his victims. When the US attorney who secured his conviction, Jeh Johnson, was appointed by Obama to direct the Department of Homeland Security last year, Occhipinti rushed to the right-wing writer Charles C. Johnson to complain. The anger coursing through the ranks of the NYPD is driving union bosses like Lynch to ratchet up their rhetoric against the mayor. Lynch is up for election soon and seems desperate to channel the resentment of his constituents. Meanwhile, Republican operatives see a chance to do fatal damage to a rising Democratic star and close Clinton ally by resurrecting the kind of racial backlash politics that won them urban white votes during the Nixon era. Not since the early 1970s, when liberal mayor John Lindsay presided over a politically chaotic and crime-ridden New York, has a mayor been so reviled by the NYPD. With an African-American wife with a history of liberal activism and a biracial son who played a pivotal role in his campaign for mayor, de Blasio has become, at least for some cops, a symbol of everything they despise about the city they patrol. On a semi-private chat forum, they regularly hold forth with racist tirades against him and his family.
~snip~
From #TurnYourBack to Operation All Out
At the Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn where Ramos and Liu were pronounced dead on December 20, the PBA and Sergeants Benevolent Association received word that de Blasio was on his way. It was the police union bosses chance to embrace the raw rage of the beat cops they represented. When the mayor arrived, proceeding down a long hallway past a line of officers, the cops turned their backs to him in a show of total contempt. That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor, the PBAs Lynch proclaimed afterwards. When these funerals are over, those responsible will be called on the carpet and held accountable. The following day, actor James Woods seized on the protest to popularize a hashtag on Twitter: #TurnYourBack. Woods first tweet, published just hours after the spontaneous protest took place, has been retweeted more than 2500 times. Woods is one of the Tea Party right's favorite celebrities and happens to be a friend and golfing partner of Rudy Giuliani. In fact, Woods played the former NYC mayor in the forgotten post-9/11 biopic, Rudy. I fought tooth and nail to portray him as the genuine hero that I unequivocally believe him to be, Woods said at the time. With help from Woods and Rupert Murdochs New York Post and Fox News Channel, where Giuliani blamed the Mayor for bringing [police protests] on himself, the NYPDs war on de Blasio became a flashpoint for the national partisan battle. The stage was set for an epic rebuke of de Blasio. Nearly 700 cops from around the country and Canada descended on New York City for the December 27 funeral of the murdered officer Rafael Ramos, taking advantage of an offer from Jet Blue of free flights to the memorial. Among those represented at the ceremony were members of the Albuquerque Police Department, a scandal-stained force with the highest rate of shootings of unarmed civilians in the country.
cont'
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/exposed-how-republicans-and-cops-are-teaming-take-down-deblasio
muntrv
(14,505 posts)malaise
(268,885 posts)From day one I noted that this entire situation was way too neat
mountain grammy
(26,614 posts)Gestapo unleashed! #TurnYourBack indeed. Fuck you, James Woods.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)And start firing some asses.
- And having others arrested.
K&R
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)Time for the fascist conspiracy to be broken on the anvil of justice.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They had their protest.
Two cops killed.
End of protest.
See?
Same thing.
Now all you black people shut up and go home.
project_bluebook
(411 posts)The union busting, Satan worshiping, koch sucking gov of Wisconsin.
Stellar
(5,644 posts)I saw him as being President one day. The police mafia must go.
Lucky Luciano
(11,253 posts)I would lve to see those shitstains' lives ruined fir going on the offensive like this.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)craigmatic
(4,510 posts)they feel entitled to it and when someone doesn't play their game they get butthurt about it.
harrose
(380 posts)They can't stand the idea that a white man, married to a black woman with biracial children is in any position of authority. Every single Rethug in the city (including the cops) have been trying to take him down since Day One.
brooklynite
(94,489 posts)It's fun to yell "conspiracy", but there's no way to "Take Down De Blasio", any more than they took down Dinkins other than through a legal election.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)to undercut DeBlasio as we speak.
That is a conspiracy, it's anti-democratic, and an abuse of the public trust. PBA is inching towards being a RICO case waiting to happen.
I hope BDB puts a major hurt on the cop unions.
spanone
(135,816 posts)proceed at your own peril.
it appears new yorkers want the nypd cleaned up.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)With that said, I will paraphrase JFK: When it comes to police unions, smash them into a million pieces!
nt
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)There will be police officers who support De Blasio. Wait till they begin to speak out. The police force will be divided and its union weakened. De Blasio just needs to stay calm. He will win in the end. Because the people of New York like the people everywhere want strong, fair leaders. De Blasio won by a good margin.
I think the police will lose this one although it will take some time. I could be wrong, but the police force is probably not as united behind the right-wing criticism as it might now appear. If De Blasio stays cool, he will do OK I think.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)We got the kingdom, we got the key
We got the empire, now as then
We don't doubt, we don't take direction
Hot metal and methedrine
I hear your empire down...
1step
(380 posts)Corrected!
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)If Bratton can't put a stop to this baloney he's going to have to resign and it won't be deBlasio's fault.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)and progressive groups.
They are Pinkerton goons.