Mayor de Blasio disagreed Wednesday with his police commissioner’s slam of the City Council as a destructive bunch of novices.
“I don’t share the assessment,” de Blasio told reporters when asked about the comments by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who called the “novice” Council “obstructive and destructive” for pursuing legislation to rein in the NYPD.
“I have had a very good working relationship with the City Council,” he said. “I think the Council has raised a host of very serious issues. I don’t agree with the Council on some of their proposed solutions. I’ve made that quite clear. But I think it has been a respectful and serious and substantive process.”
The Council is considering, but hasn’t brought to a vote, a slew of bills including ones to make the use of a chokehold by cops a crime and require officers to inform New Yorkers of their right to refuse a search. Bratton said most of the bills “are unnecessary, intrusive and self-serving on the part of the Council.”
De Blasio expressed no problem with his commissioner speaking out in harsh terms.
“Commissioner Bratton was speaking honestly, and I respect that,” he said. “But I think in the end we are continuing to work every day with the City Council towards real solutions.”
