New York City’s top cop has choice words for Rep. Maxine Waters for urging protesters to “get confrontational” with police — but you won’t hear them.
“I think it’s incredibly reckless. I even have stronger feelings but I’ll keep them to myself,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday.
“We just had an officer having a Molotov cocktail at them last week,” Shea said on Fox 5’s “Good New Day NY.”
“To have an elected official in this country to be advocating for getting tougher on cops at this time is beyond me,” he said. “I cannot repeat what I think.”
During a trip to Brooklyn Center , Minn. on Saturday, Rep. Waters (D-Calif) called for demonstrators to stay on the streets, “get more active” and “get more confrontational” with cops if they aren’t happy with the verdict in the George Floyd murder trial.
Ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin is trial for killing Floyd, whose death was caught on camera while Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds last year.
Chauvin’s fate is the hands of a jury.
Shea urged community leaders and elected officials to advocate for “no violence or destruction of property” should protests erupt after the verdict.
“The key points here are just calm and that we are here to support protests,” Shea said. “That’s really what this is about.”
“We feel we are much better prepared this time around. We all remember what happened last May and we don’t want a repeat of that on any level,” Shea said.
The NYPD was widely criticized for how it handled people who flooded the street to protest Floyd’s death.
The department is being sued by Attorney General Letitia James for suppressing “overwhelmingly peaceful” protests.
Shea believes cops in the city — as well as across the country — are being targeted as the Chauvin trial plays out.
“There’s no doubt,” Shea said. “You saw spray paint in the city last week (that read) ‘Kill Cops.’”
Those targeting cops are “a really tiny, tiny element,” Shea said.
“It’s important for all people to speak up when they see (graffiti) like that,” he said. “We know that New Yorkers love their police.”
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