This fucker needs only to look in the mirror and around him at the loss
of freedoms people have to experience thanks largely in part because of
him, this appointment is an incitement to violence against cops in NYC.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/nyregion/bratton-stands-before-police-force-with-a-mandate-for-change.html?_r=0
Bratton Takes Helm of Police Force He Pledged to Change
By J. DAVID GOODMAN and JOSEPH GOLDSTEINJAN. 2, 2014
Minutes after the bagpipes faded and he took the oath of office on
Thursday, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton signaled that he
intended to shift the nation’s largest police department away from an
aggressive style of patrolling New York City that had alienated many
minority residents.
In his first policy message to the city and the police force he now
commands, Mr. Bratton said that the tremendous strides the department
had made in reducing crime should long ago have given way to fewer
confrontational encounters between the police and the public.
“Crime is down to such extraordinarily low levels in this city versus
where it was that there is an expectation — or there should be an
expectation — that the intrusion of police into citizens’ lives should
also diminish,” he told reporters after being sworn in. “But we had the
reverse happening.”
A day after he officially took over the department on Wednesday in a
private ceremony, Mr. Bratton said it was unfortunate that relations
between the police and the community were marked by “disconnect” and
“alienation.”
Mr. Bratton, with his wife, Rikki Klieman, held his new badge after he
was sworn in on Thursday. Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mr. Bratton’s remarks, often introspective in tone, differed markedly
from those of his predecessor, Raymond W. Kelly, who often bristled at
the suggestion that his strategies were sowing discord.
“We will all work hard to identify why is it that so many in this city
do not feel good about this department that has done so much to make
them safe — what has it been about our activities that have made so many
alienated?” Mr. Bratton said, speaking to a packed hall at Police
Headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
He pledged a new era of policing that would be “a collaboration unlike
any that we have ever seen” in New York. “That’s why I came back,” he
said.
Mr. Bratton, the city’s 42nd police commissioner, must now deliver on
the campaign promises of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who vowed to make changes
to the stop-and-frisk tactics that were the dominant theme under Mr.
Kelly. But with the Police Department coming under increasing criticism,
substantial changes already began taking root toward the end of Mr.
Kelly’s tenure, with street stops falling precipitously since early
2012.
Mr. Bratton outlined in the most concrete terms to date how his
crime-fighting strategies would differ from those of his predecessor. He
singled out Operation Impact, Mr. Kelly’s signature program, which
involved sending rookie officers to high-crime neighborhoods to seek out
suspicious behavior and confront it. The program led to a soaring number
of recorded street stops and angered some residents of neighborhoods
such as Brownsville, Brooklyn, who complained of a dragnet approach,
particularly in public housing. “The former commissioner, his opinion
was that stop, question and frisk and Operation Impact were the way to
go,” Mr. Bratton said. “It really is a difference of opinion.”
While Mr. Kelly’s crime-fighting strategy involved relentless
enforcement of even minor violations, Mr. Bratton, 66, suggested that
approach was coming at too high cost.
“I am quite comfortable that we can have less and achieve the same
results,” Mr. Bratton said.
Mr. Bratton returns to a department he ran from 1994 to 1996. During
that period, he changed the posture of the Police Department from one
focused on responding to crimes to one that sought to prevent them, in
part through an intense focus on low-level, quality-of-life offenses.
Since then, he has spent years consulting departments around the
country. He was also the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
There he received wide praise as he led a police force that had been
plagued by corruption and brutality out from under a federal consent
decree in the 2000s. He reached out to the department’s critics early
on, and won over most of them by the time he stepped down in 2009,
despite a doubling in the number of stop-and-frisk encounters during his
tenure.
On Thursday, Mr. Bratton said he would also look to the nation’s other
police departments for ideas and inspiration — a striking note of
humility for the head of a department that had long seen itself to be
the leader in innovation.
Mr. Bratton said returning to Police Headquarters was like coming back
to a familiar home that had been remodeled. He said a bottle of
Champagne from Mr. Kelly was waiting for him with a note: “Happy New
Year, Good Luck.” Mr. Kelly did not attend Thursday’s swearing-in.
While drawing firm distinction with Mr. Kelly, he also offered kind
words, saying that under his leadership the Police Department kept the
city safe not only from crime but from a terrorist threat that
registered far less during Mr. Bratton’s previous tenure. Mr. Bratton’s
compliments were in stark contrast to speeches on the day Mr. de Blasio
named him as commissioner; neither uttered Mr. Kelly’s name in their
prepared remarks.
Mr. Bratton also praised the department’s strategy to suppress violence
associated with the informal youth gangs responsible for many of the
city’s shootings. Mr. Bratton said he would seek to build on the
successes of that program, known as Operation Crew Cut and begun in
2012. He said he would seek to expand it and involve more narcotics
officers.
A version of this article appears in print on January 3, 2014, on page
A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Bratton Vows to Steer
Police Away From Aggressive Tactics. Order Reprints|Today's
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