NYC police boss: More dialogue, less rhetoric needed

Published 9:24 am Monday, December 29, 2014

NEW YORK — New York City’s police commissioner called for a “lot less rhetoric and a lot more dialogue” to defuse the tension between police officers and the population they protect.

Commissioner William Bratton, speaking on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday, a day after the funeral for one of two police officers gunned down in their patrol car, said the “pent-up frustrations” that have caused people to take to the streets in recent weeks go far beyond policing policies across the nation.

“This is about the continuing poverty rates, the continuing growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor. It’s still about unemployment issues. There are so many national issues that have to be addressed that it isn’t just policing, as I think we all well know,” he said.

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Bratton said rank-and-file officers and much of America’s police leadership feels under attack, including “from the federal government at the highest levels.”

He urged: “See us. See the police. See why they have the anxieties and the perceptions they have.”