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NYPD Commish Bratton: De Blasio, Police Rift ‘Will Go On For A While’ [VIDEO]

Al Weaver Reporter
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One day after members of the NYPD turned their backs on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio once again, NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told “Meet The Press” that the rift between the mayor and the police “will go on for a while.”

Bratton, who also appeared on “Face The Nation,” made the remarks to host NBC’s Chuck Todd Sunday morning.

“I think it’s probably a rift that’s going to go on for a while longer… The issues go far beyond the race relations in this city,” said Bratton. “They involve labor contracts, a lot of history in this city that’s really different from some of what’s going on in the country as a whole.”

“There’s a whole series of local issues that are impacting on our ability to move forward. But we will be making that effort,” Bratton told Todd. “We have to make that effort. We have no other recourse.”

“It is unfortunate that we have at this time when we’ve had such great success in dealing with crime in New York City, for example, over the last 21 years, at a time that the city is effectively booming in so many ways, that we have these frustrations, these pent-up frustrations,” Bratton said. “This isn’t just about policing. This is about larger issues. We’re the tip of the iceberg.”

In his appearance on CBS’s Sunday show, Bratton added that the officers’ decision to turn their backs on Mayor de Blasio was “inappropriate.”