“They don’t have a damn idea what they’re talking about, but we are not going to let them destroy this city,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said during a CompStat briefing on Thursday. “People who have no idea how to keep New Yorkers safe suddenly think they know about the police.”
The police commissioner did not name a specific legislator in his speech at the CompStat briefing, a weekly meeting of department leaders and senior commanders.
CNN contacted the office of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD to comment on the seven-minute video. Julia Arredondo, a De Blasio spokeswoman, said Saturday that the mayor and Shea continue to be business partners.
“As shown in their hour-long press conference on Friday, the mayor and the commissioner are working closely together to combat crime,” said Arredondo.
The day after their fiery speech, Shea appeared with De Blasio at the mayor’s daily press conference, where the couple launched a city-wide violence prevention plan that included asset redistribution in areas heavily affected by gun violence. .
Shea’s speech comes as the city faces an increase in shootings and killings that it has not seen in nearly two decades. As of July 12, the city has recorded 634 shootings compared to 394 in the same period last year, an increase of 60%. There have been 203 murders so far in 2020, a jump of 23% compared to the same time period in 2019, when the city recorded 165 murders.
During the short speech, Shea said that according to authorities, 20 people “touch 100 shots,” without specifying the time frame. Shea said the city may not need 1 million or 10,000 people in jail, but “these damn 20 people need to go to jail.”
The speech reflected what a number of New York police officials have advocated since the heyday of George Floyd’s protests in New York City: Police officers now face anti-police rhetoric that has elicited the support from city lawmakers and has emboldened some to commit crimes, contributing in part to increasing violence.
“They will be unbelievably tested, unbelievably tested, probably in the next few months this is not a short-term problem. They have ruined this city so much in a short period of time, it will take us a while to get it, our arms around,” Shea said. “I think it has already started. The police are incredibly challenged in how they can monitor today. There is no question.”
New York police officials say the new laws have made officers more reluctant to make arrests because it takes away a key criminal tool to subdue a suspect during a tense arrest. Authorities have said the changes contribute not only to increased violence, but also to low morale.
“I don’t know if there has ever been a period exactly like this where so many government systems are literally cowards who don’t stand up for what’s right,” Shea said. “They are failing in every possible measure to be leaders. And they throw him on the backs of the men and women of this police department and curse them with one hand and then blame them with the other. How dare they?”
CNN’s Lauren del Valle contributed to this report.
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