“I Know a Way Out of Hell.”

It’s my favorite line In Gandhi. Who’da thunk Mayor Bill de Blasio would be the one who’d actually give me a chance to use it.

It’s even apology free, he should jump at the chance.

All he has to do is to make clear to the cops and everyone else that he will honor the social contract that exists with all law enforcement officers everywhere all over the world.  That nobody gets to physically fight the police.  At this point the police can’t trust him to do that and that is the WHOLE problem.

He needs to make clear that anyone whom physically assaults the police will and should be, stopped, arrested, tried, and hopefully serves a prison term.  This simple arrangement is how 35,000 police can survive long enough to protect a city of 16 million.  They know it too.  Without that it’s hopeless.  Even if de Blasio were able to fire them all and hire a completely new force he’d STILL require that arrangement with the new cops if they were going to be able to police the city. 

I believe that most people have had bosses that they neither like nor respect, and that it’s probably worse in public service.  I also believe the police can deal with that if they believe they have a reasonable expectation of going home at the end of their shift.  Right now they do not believe that, and whether it’s true or not that belief is exactly the problem. 

That specifically is exactly what the police mean when they say de Blasio does not have their backs.  It’s a simple fix – and will thus most likely be ignored.  Politicians rarely attack the real problem. 

Even if I’m right about being ignored there is an upside for the mayor though – by turning their backs on him at public functions (and by the way, those who claim to misunderstand are full of it) they have allowed de Blasio to lead from behind, just like Obama.  I’m sure he thinks that’s a win.