Mayor de Blasio's police commissioner, Dermot Shea, can't possibly keep his job this week, as the Daily News published a shocking video of the top cop defying the elected leaders of the city. (CNN and Gothamist also covered.)
In the video, Shea — who has already publicly disagreed with his boss over the just-signed chokehold bill, among other things — calls city leaders “cowards” who “who won’t stand up for what’s right” and “don’t have a goddamn clue” about policing.
“They are failing at every possible measure to be leaders, and they throw it 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,” said Shea, who has also been less than truthful about the causes of the rise in crime.
The story was posted on Saturday afternoon and, thus far, Shea's boss hasn't said anything. But people certainly want to hear more, which explains why Shea has back-to-back-to-back-to-back morning show interviews set up for Monday (see picture of his schedule, above right).
Many people were outraged by Shea's comments. Queens Council Member Donovan Richards was particularly biting:
In other news from a very busy weekend:
- CBS2 TV reporter Nina Kapur has died over the weekend after an electric scooter crash, the NY Post reported. Few details were immediately available.
- We covered the coming carpocalypse last week, but Politico did a deeper dive that looked into preventative measures that the mayor has failed to take, the inevitable congestion that the mayor says we should strive to avoid, and the danger to the climate that the mayor says he cares about.
- Guse at the Newsuh did a full length story on a phenomenon that Streetsblog documented early in the pandemic: reckless drivers more than made up for the loss in carnage brought about by the reduction in the number of vehicles on the road.
- Double-duty Guse also had a story about how COVID-19 is running roughshod through Miami's transit facilities, infecting workers.
- Times columnist Genia Bellafante says we should have school classes outdoors, which definitely dovetails with our long-held idea that the streets around all public schools should be closed to cars.
- The Times did a nationally focused curtain raiser on whether the Senate will finally take up transit relief when members return to Washington on Monday — and are told by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the answer is no.
- Remember this any time Shea or Mayor de Blasio say that "real" residents of the community stand with the NYPD: An East Village block association leader, Stuart Zamsky, wrote in the Village Sun that he disapproves of the way police are barricading themselves and stealing public space.
- Did you party this weekend in Astoria, Queens? No? Then you were probably the only one. (NY Post, Gothamist)
- Wow, the usually reliable (no, seriously) Queens Eagle bought a bill of goods from some uninformed "business leaders" who claim a .3-mile car-free bus-only zone on Main Street in Flushing is going to ruin everything. It won't. (But, also, if it does, how hard is it to undo a .3-mile busway?)
- Here is your Phase IV reopening guide (NYDN, NY Times). Step one: insert a big apple into the oven... (NY Post)
- A drunk driver seriously injured a man in upper Manhattan. That man turned out to be an NYPD sergeant. Obviously, the driver was charged on the spot. (NYDN, NY Post)
- Mask-less jerks are beating up bus drivers. (NY Post)
- Here we go again: The Department of Transportation wants to put some, super-wide dangerous roadways in the Throggs Neck section on a road diet (as it did for another stretch of East Tremont four years ago). The Bronx Times found a few community members (with extremely short memories when death is involved) to completely misrepresent the plan and vow to block it. If Morris Park is any example, the neighbors will lose, then sue on the grounds that the city doesn't have the power that it clearly does have, drag it out for a year ... then lose again.
- The Times looked at people who are using Revel scooters and Citi Bikes to get around. What took you so long to notice the present and future of transportation in the city, Gray Lady?
- Call us killjoys, but we're no fans of the pop-up drive-in era we apparently are about to enter. The latest troubling addition to the trend? Rooftop Films' drive-in movie theater at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, which, as Gothamist reported, won't allow bicyclists or pedestrians. The Rooftop Films FAQ makes it clear that you can cram five people into a car, but there's no room for a cyclist to stand six feet off on the side with a mask. "Unfortunately we cannot accommodate guests without cars at the event due to safety concerns and as per city and state regulations," the site says.
- And, finally, the reason Twitter was invented:
