Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio. | Getty Images
NEW YORK — Wednesday brought a cooling of tensions between protesters and police as well as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York City police department.
Cuomo reportedly apologized to NYPD brass privately after drawing the scorn of Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Tuesday, when the governor accused cops of failing to contain widespread looting. He insisted Wednesday that his criticism was only ever directed at how police were deployed, not the officers themselves.
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"The actual police officers are the best," Cuomo said during his daily press briefing. "My issue was with the management and deployment. Never about the police officers.”
But the day before, Cuomo said, “the police in New York City were not effective at doing their job last night. Period" — a remark Shea said was "disgraceful." Chief of Department Terence Monahan urged the governor to publicly repeat the apology he offered to police brass.
“I hope he would come out publicly and say it again," Monahan said during an interview on NBC's "Today" show, but Cuomo demurred when asked by reporters
“I spoke to the police commissioner and said the same thing I just said to you and the same thing I just said yesterday, which is it's an issue of management and deployment."
The muted rhetoric accompanied a much less chaotic night in the city as protests proceeded without much of the destruction seen the night before. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Shea credited an 8 p.m. curfew and a beefed-up police presence with curtailing looting and property damage in Midtown and the South Bronx.
“Last night we took a step forward in moving out of this difficult period we’ve had these last few days and moving to a better time,” de Blasio said during a Wednesday press briefing.
There were some mass arrests as the curfew took effect, and a group of demonstrators walking across the Manhattan Bridge was prevented from entering Chinatown and turned around after a tense standoff with police blocking the off ramp.
The mayor and Shea said there were isolated instances of violence against officers and several break-ins, but that the more chaotic elements that have coincided with the mass demonstrations were far less prevalent Tuesday night compared to the evening before, which had prompted Cuomo to ready state police and the national guard for deployment to the five boroughs. He made no mention of formally stepping into the situation Wednesday.
“Protesters were mainly peaceful. Police officers had the numbers and capacity to do their jobs and the results last night were much, much different than the night before and that's what it’s all about,” he said. “I think the people in New York City should feel much better today than they did after the night of looting.”
Monahan, Shea and de Blasio continued to say that outside and criminal elements are fomenting much of the violence over the past few days, though officials have left it unclear exactly who the groups are or where they come from. On Wednesday morning, Shea said that pre-staged tranches of bricks and rocks were being delivered to some demonstrations, construction sites are being robbed of similar materials and that in some cases water bottles full of cement are being hurled at officers. However, aside from an oblique reference to California, the administration has yet to identify in further detail who these groups are.
The mayor also declined to go into detail about changes to the police disciplinary process. The de Blasio administration will be facing legislation from the City Council that would create a more standardized punishment system for officer misbehavior and criminalize the use of chokeholds and other neck restraints. Lawmakers also want to dock the NYPD's budget, something the mayor pushed back on Wednesday.
"For folks who say defund the police, I would say that is not the way forward," he said, indicating that the department needs money for community policing and reaching out to young New Yorkers.
The mayor cautioned that the protests will likely contribute to a further spike in cases of Covid-19 as the city is set to enter the reopening process, however, because the city posted such low numbers Wednesday and the test and trace program is up and running, de Blasio hoped the impact would be minimal.
The city reported 39 people admitted to hospitals Tuesday for suspected cases of Covid-19, just over 350 people still in intensive care units in public hospitals and 4 percent of New York City positive test results for New Yorkers screened for the disease.
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