people oppose brutality, against civilians- AND POLICE.

gang members are now targeting and killing police.

invoking eric garner.

these gang members are taking advantage of garner, his family and tens of thousands of peaceful marchers.  they have nothing to do with the protests, they're just violent parasites looking for excuses to do harm.

they're doing harm to the police, harm to eric garner, his family and their supporters; and they're also doing harm to all young brown men and boys.  its because of violent gangs that police look with suspicion at all young men of color.

gangs are such a big part of the whole tangled problem. but gangs exist because of poverty, dangerous living conditions, poor education, lack of jobs, absent parents, prison culture...  in environments like this gangs appear to offer opportunity and protection, and all humans gravitate to opportunity and protection.

the nyc police union leader is blaming the mayor, who fears for his own biracial son, and dared to publicly say so. the union leader's accusations are aggravating a terrible situation and really misdirecting blame.  unhelpful, inflammatory, in the face of huge societal challenges.

mayor de blasio should have expressed more support for rank and file police in his comments, in fact i'm appalled that he failed to. pretty bad leadership. but union president patrick lynch actually said the mayor had "blood on his hands." and followed this up with nearly threatening language. in a time of such high tensions and civil unrest need we now fear some suggestible deranged person might target the mayor?

i oppose excessive force and selective unlawful search and seizure, but i don't blame police.  i just hate the policy of unequal treatment, and the few overly aggressive people in uniform who abuse their power.  the incidents of brutality almost always involve a confluence of bad policy, bad training and bad apples.  but the last is an exception; most nyc police are honorable, brave public servants doing a very hard job.  inadequate training and poor policies outside their control make their hard job harder.