De Blasio-cops battle good for New York

A major police union called for a boycott of New York City yesterday as long as it doesn’t get its way. The Sergeants Benevolent Association told the Democratic Party leadership NOT to consider New York for its next convention, arguing that the city is too dangerous now due to the new mayor’s friendship with Al Sharpton.

The cop union is pissed off at the mild attempts by their ostensible boss, the mayor, to stop them from beating and killing people. So they took out full-page ads in newspapers to drum up demagogic support for their enforcement of the modern Jim Crow code of black-male control.

It’s pretty amazing that these top cops insist upon remaining a free-lance occupying force exempt from following the rules they impose on the rest of us and will even resort to open sabotage to protect their privileges. They are taking a lesson from their Republican friends in Congress who are happy to wreck the chances for an American economic recovery as long as that outcome damages Obama and benefits themselves.

The Staten Island chokehold case hasn’t inhibited the city’s cop leaders in the least—on the contrary, they’re even more determined to stop any pursuit of justice over that on-screen assassination of a non-violent detainee. To his credit, De Blasio has come out swinging, and there is now a chance that the conflict will bubble over into the real confrontation that the city sorely needs.

There must be plenty of rank-and-file cops who don’t feel the same way about the new mayor and the need to stop the most violent cops from continuing to abuse citizens. But they live within a strict hierarchy and know better than to challenge the white guys who can make their lives miserable.

If De Blasio and his police commissioner Bill Bratton want to avoid much nastier violence, including inflamed racial sentiments that already are beginning to emerge, they will have to face down these cop union jugheads and make their intransigence costly to the uniformed services. Contract negotiations are coming up, giving De Blasio an excellent tool for demanding a modicum of cooperation from the cops as he has dispatched other union demands promptly and generously.

The sergeants and patrolmen’s association leadership probably think the city’s white residents will back them up no matter what, and they’re probably right. But Caucasian New Yorkers are a minority, and De Blasio doesn’t have to delight them to get his work done.