By Thomas Tracy and Rocco Parascandola
New York Daily News
NEW YORK CITY — NYPD bosses are “seeing red” after several videos surfaced online of police officers being doused with water by rowdy goons -- and in one case, hit in the head with a bucket.
“Our anti-cop lawmakers have gotten their wish: the NYPD is now frozen,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch fumed Monday. “It’s not the fault of these police officers. It’s the end result of the torrent of bad policies and anti-police rhetoric that has been streaming out of City Hall and Albany for years now.
“We are approaching the point of no return,” Lynch said.
The videos appear to have been shot in recent days during the city’s heat wave.
In one clip, cops in Brownsville walk away as they’re being mocked and drenched with buckets of water. Police sources say the officers were responding to an unruly crowd and turned to leave as the group became rowdy.
Another video shows someone throwing an empty bucket at an officer’s head while he and his partner try to arrest a man on St. Nicholas Ave. in Upper Manhattan.
“Disorder controls the streets, and our elected leaders refuse to allow us to take them back,” Lynch said Monday. “As police officers, we need to draw a line. In situations like this, we need to take action to protect ourselves and the public.
“The politicians may not care about the dangerous levels of chaos in our neighborhoods, but police officers and decent New Yorkers should not be forced to suffer.”
One police supervisor who saw the videos lauded the Manhattan officers for ignoring the water and the bucket, but said the other cops should have been written up and disciplined “for taking the abuse and doing nothing about it.”
A second supervisor said the NYPD has become too soft in their effort to win back the trust and respect of various neighborhoods.
“These cops should have done something but they walked off like nothing happened,” the supervisor said. “I’m seeing red right now.”
“If it happened to me, the paper would have had a story about a cop trying to shove a guy’s head in a fire hydrant,” the supervisor added.
https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1153425269555904512
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the videos.
©2019 New York Daily News