Terence Monahan (left), Dermot Shea (center) and Bill de Blasio. Photo: Christopher Sadowski
The city’s top cop said Sunday that the NYPD-hating group that created subway chaos last month is at least partly to blame for a pair of attempted assassinations of Bronx officers over the weekend.
“These things are not unrelated,” Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea told reporters.
“We had people marching through the streets of NYC recently” spewing hate against cops, he said, referring to a radical police-hating group that wreaked havoc Jan. 31 when dozens of members stormed the city’s subway system, scrawling and chanting anti-NYPD slogans, including “F–k cops!”
“You have to be careful about the words you use,” Shea said. “Words matter, and words affect people’s behavior.
“We had people marching through the streets of NYC recently” spewing hate against cops, he said, referring to a radical police-hating group that wreaked havoc Jan. 31 when dozens of members stormed the city’s subway system, scrawling and chanting anti-NYPD slogans, including “F–k cops!”
“You have to be careful about the words you use,” Shea said. “Words matter, and words affect people’s behavior.
“And here we have New York City police officers, twice in two hours, targeted.”
Meanwhile, an NYPD union chief blamed the state’s criminal justice reforms — which eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and many felonies — for the weekend shootings.
“We need to get in front of this criminal justice reform,” Lieutenants Benevolent Association President Lou Turco said during the press conference. “We need to work together to fix this thing because right now the city of New York residents are in danger because of this.”
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said in a statement Sunday that “it is a double miracle that we are not preparing for two funerals right now.”
“These targeted attacks are exactly what we have warned against, again and again,” Lynch said. “The hatred and violence directed at cops continues to grow.”
“Good luck and kind words are not enough to keep police officers or the public safe,” he said. “Our elected officials need to start listening to us and working with us — not against us — to fix the deteriorating environment on our streets.”
Authorities believe both shootings were perpetrated by career criminal Robert Williams. The shot officers are expected to survive their gunshot wounds, officials said.