Former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly popped out of the woodwork the other day to talk shit about Mayor de Blasio on the Fox Business Channel, blaming the mayor’s directive for the police to be less aggro for the recent uptick in homicides.
“A lot of the signals that’ve been given to police officers, certainly here and in the other cities, is, ‘Don’t engage in proactive policing. Be reactive. Wait for that 911 call to come in,’” Kelly said, showing that he misunderstands an essential function of police. Of course the police should be reactive not proactive, Ray Kelly, you dum-dum. Proactive policing leads to citizens getting shot (to be fair, reactive [or reflexive] policing leads to people getting shot, too). Proactive policing is stop-and-frisk, which didn’t lower crime and gave hundreds of thousands of people of color criminal records.
And where do those signals come from, Ray Kelly? “Here, they are coming from the mayor.” Okay, dude. You should have turned your back to the camera in protest.
The murder rate in 2015 is up in 10 precincts. “For people to say, ‘Oh, they’re only gang members’ — I thought all lives matter,” Kelly said. “That was a very strange signal from this administration, here in this city, to say, ‘Well, it’s only in 10 precincts. You don’t have to worry your pretty little head about what’s going on there.’” Shut up, Ray Kelly. No one is saying that. You sound like a Daily News commenter. What are the police going to do, infiltrate every neighborhood set and convince them all to settle the beef through a dance-off?
Why is Ray Kelly even on TV in 2015? He’s not the commissioner anymore. He also doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, because the crime rate has been falling for years and no one knows why, exactly. It just has been. But Kelly has to say something. Harry Siegel has a column about Kelly’s scaremongering self-justification in the Daily News today. It’s definitely worth a read.
The current commissioner says enough stupid, crazy shit in the press that there’s no room for another, former commissioner to say stupid, crazy shit. Go be a behind-the-scenes consultant and make millions of dollars and stop trolling for attention, Ray Kelly.
(Photo: Azi Paybarah)
