Bill Bratton Archives

NY Police Commissioner Slams Ted Cruz – “He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about”

New York Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, is not a fan of fools. That will explain why Bratton took offense to a statement by Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, who, in response to the deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, called for increased police surveillance in Muslim neighborhoods as the answer to stop ISIS and Islamic extremist terrorists.

“He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, to be quite frank with you. I took great offense to that statement,” Bratton said. “I have almost 1,000 Muslim officers in the NYPD. Ironically when he’s running around here we probably have a few Muslim officers guiding him.”

Cruz was confronted by the comment when he appeared on “CBS This Morning” later, and replied:

“It’s not surprising that the Democratic political henchmen of Mayor de Blasio are coming after me, and that is on the instructions of Mayor de Blasio,” Cruz said.

Cruz continued, pointing to an earlier program put in place by former mayor Michael Bloomberg, which Cruz said “worked proactively with the Muslim community to stop radicalization.”

“Mayor de Blasio decided to come in, and decided that political correctness mattered more than keeping before safe… he disbanded the program,” Cruz said.

The Muslim surveillance program, or “Demographics Unit,” or “Zone Assessment Unit” in New York City was disbanded in 2014 . Law enforcement officials have admitted the program, which began in 2003 in wake of the 9/11 attacks, never generated any viable leads, CBS New York reported in an earlier story.

New York Police Officers Salute Mayor DeBlasio at Slain Officer’s Wake

The first time around when the mayor went to pay his respects to one of New York’s fallen heroes, the rest of the New York police department allowed their union leader to get the best of them, and showered the mayor with the uttermost disrespect – turning their backs on the man as he attended the funeral.

But something has changed, and today as the mayor made his way through the wake of the second fallen officer, he was saluted by other police officers at the scene, thanks in part to a stern letter written by Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton.

Ahead of the wake for Wenjian Liu, Commissioner Bill Bratton told officers to refrain from the “act of disrespect” seen at the funeral of Liu’s partner, Rafael Ramos, when thousands of officers turned their backs on de Blasio.

“A hero’s funeral is about grieving, not grievance,” Bratton wrote in a memo to be read on police roll calls over the weekend. The funeral is set for Sunday.

Liu, 32, and Ramos, 40, were shot to death on Dec. 20 as they sat in their squad car in Brooklyn. Their killer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who killed himself soon after, had said he was seeking to avenge the deaths this summer of two unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers.

On Saturday, a few hundred mourners, most of them police officers in dress blue uniforms, lined up outside the funeral home on a frigid, snowy afternoon.

De Blasio and Bratton entered the funeral home together shortly after it opened, with officers standing guard by the entrance saluting both men as they went inside. The wake was closed to the public.