It's About Grievance, Not Grieving, After All

In a continuing sign of disrespect for elected officials, officers from the NYPD turned their backs on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio at the funeral of slain NYPD officer Wenjian Liu.  As the mayor delivered the eulogy, thousands of police standing outside the service defied Police Commissioner William Bratton's request that they refrain from such a demonstration, saying in a memo to them that the service should be "about grieving, not grievance."  NYPD police unions -- in particular the Patrolman's Benevolent Association (PBA) -- have been resentful of the mayor's move to reform their tactics and community relations after the choking death of Eric Gardner last summer.

Increasing hostility toward City Hall has been overtly stoked by demagogic PBA president Patrick Lynch, whose neo-Facist tendencies are explored by Andrew O'Hehir in this Salon article.  Lynch sees the NYPD -- and police forces in general -- as infallible centurions keeping the peace by any means necessary, legal or illegal, and woe to anyone proposing oversight or weeding out bad cops.  As we noted last Tuesday, voices have been emerging that see the arrogant, passive-aggressive behavior of the back-turning police and their work stoppages as an assault on elected government.  The more this arrogance is displayed, the more damage is done to police-community relations, and the more questions are raised about who the cops really think they work for.