Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bratton Hold Media Availability

July 8, 2016

Video available at: https://youtu.be/ahXD-OCdf6s

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, it is a very painful day for this nation and for all of us here in this city. We stand in solidarity with the people of Dallas, for the police officers of Dallas – their families. There’s such agony right now because of this heinous attack. And let’s be very clear, this is an evil, an unacceptable attack. It was an attempt to undermine our values and any attempt at peaceful democratic protest. This was an effort to undermine everything our democracy is about. And I want to emphasize that an attack on our police is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on our larger society and everything we hold dear. We know that there are some who not only do violence, but attempt to divide us further. We will not let that happen. Even with the pain that we’re all feeling right now, we will redouble our efforts to bring police and community together, to keep our officers safe, to keep our communities safe. On behalf of eight-and-a-half million New Yorkers, I want to extend my condolences to all the families in Dallas who lost their loved ones. And it is so important to recognize these officers were there protecting the protesters’ rights to act on their views. They were protecting their first amendment rights. These officers were there for the people around them, and they protected the protesters even as bullets were [inaudible]. Officers in Dallas went to the defense and the protection of the protesters. That’s something we have to reflect on as an example of all that is good about our police and the work they do, but also a reminder of the way forward – because even in that most difficult and painful and tragic moment, the police defended everyone around them.

The officers in Dallas were assassinated in cold blood. And we know their families are in tremendous pain right now, but it is important to recognize that police officers and their families all over the country and in this city are feeling a very real pain as well. Imagine your family members are thinking – they’ve woken up this morning to see these images. Imagine what feeling they feel for the men and women they love who serve us. So, I want all new Yorkers to be aware of that pain and, please, today, wherever you go, you see a police officer, take a moment to console them, to offer condolences, to thank them, because they’re feeling a lot right now. They’re doing their jobs, but they’re feeling a lot right now, and their families are feeling a lot of fear.

In terms of this city, thank God there is no evidence of a specific threat directed here. I just met with Commissioner Bratton and his leadership team, and they are being exceedingly vigilant about any and all information available to us about upcoming protests and other activities, but I emphasize there is no credible threat directed at New York City or emanating from New York City at this moment.

We are taking a number of important precautions. No officers will be patrolling solo. Everyone will be paired up for their safety. There will be a very substantial police presence at all protests. We’re going to make sure there are plenty of officers to keep everyone safe, and so officers will have plenty of backup and support. And we will be vigilant for any information that may cause us to take any strategic changes or actions. I’ll conclude and then turn to Commissioner Bratton just after a few words in Spanish. But I’ll conclude by saying, this kind of moment – it’s really easy for people to lose hope – so painful to watch public servants gunned down while doing their job, while serving others. Again, I’ll remind you, the people of Dallas over years have done so much to bring police and community together. The protest was notable – the peaceful protest before this heinous act was notable for the good relationship between police and protesters that was in evidenced up until this moment of tragedy. And again, the fact that the officers – their first impulse was to protect the protesters, that should be – even in the mist of the pain and the tragedy – that should be a ray of hope; that should be a reminder that we have to move forward, police and community together. And that we will.

Just a few words in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

With that, I’d like to turn to Commissioner Bratton. 

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you all for being here. Public safety is the foundation of our democracy and its freedoms. It’s the first guarantee of our Constitution. Officers – the brave officers of the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police Department – DART – last night, were targeted and murdered as they protected people exercising those freedoms. This does not blunt the pain of loss, but there is certainly honor and heroism in it. And hundreds of thousands of officers across the country will be out today keeping people safe, working with communities, serving others [inaudible]. That’s why we wear the uniform. It’s how we move forward. It’s what we do. 

Last night, as – like many of you, I was watching the event unfold in Dallas [inaudible] monitoring the events here in New York City, and many other cities around the country, I was certainly reminded of the tragedy that afflicted this city in 2014 – late 2014, 2015 – eerily similar – two of our police officers murdered during the height of demonstrations around issues of racial injustice. This is a continuing crisis in this country that needs to be addressed. And if [inaudible] the experiences we’ve had in New York with Liu and Ramos, where we sought to ensure that their lives were not lost in vain, but that we could move forward and use those deaths, those tragic murders, to try and heal, to try and address the issues in this city, in this country. And similarly in this matter, the murder of five police officers and the injuring of many others – that we need to have it serve as a catalyst at this very critical time in our country’s history, our nation’s history, to try to continue that healing process. 

Quite obviously, the events of this last week – the concerns about the [inaudible] of several black men at the hands of police officers that lead to the demonstrations that [inaudible] last night – [inaudible] are these Dallas police officers – it needs to be a clarion call for all of us in this country to take seriously the grievances of many in the minority communities in this country have, as well as the concerns that police have. [Inaudible] in terms of all that they face and all that they try to do. We need to try to find common ground as we go forward. 

In the NYPD, our hearts go out certainly to our brethren in Dallas. We anticipate that, as the arrangements go forward next week, that we’ll see an incredible outpouring of American law enforcement and the communities we serve to that city – to [inaudible] police departments – as they try to deal with the grief that they experienced last evening. 

In terms of [inaudible] here in New York, in an abundance of caution, very similar to the experiences we had back in 2014 and ‘15, Chief O’Neill has issued orders that, for the time being, our officers will be doubled up. Most of our patrols usually are dual, but we’ll ensure to the best of our ability that we try to double up all of our assignments. Additionally, our auxiliary police officers who are unarmed, with the exception of the nightsticks they carry, also will not be utilized in the field for the next several days as we get a full understanding of the circumstances in Dallas. 

Additionally, we will continue to work with the Dallas Police Department, the FBI, to gather intelligence from the events and see if there’s any [inaudible] at all, in any way, shape, or form, here [inaudible] New York in the form of potential threats here. As the Mayor has already referenced, in the briefing we just had upstairs, there are no specific threats directed against officers of this department at this time that we deem credible. There have been about [inaudible] over the past week. Chief Galati will go into more detail about what the Department is looking at relative to our intelligence gathering and our response. 

Every threat made against a New York City police officer is investigated fully and thoroughly, and even if we deem them not credible [inaudible] we treat them as if they are. So, all [inaudible] of those threats will be fully investigated until we are satisfied that they are not legitimate and not credible. Chief O’Neill will brief you on some of the arrangements that we will be making for demonstrations, one of which – a small one directly in front of the building. Several others are planned for this evening, and then others over the weekend. We intend to police them to protect not only the rights of the demonstrators, if they behave appropriately, civilly, within their constitutional rights, but also to protect the interests of the other 8.5 million New Yorkers in this city. So, we are fully prepared to do what we do, which is to try to protect the interests of all in this city. 

A tragic time – a tragic time that’s just so hard to comprehend. Last night, watching it unfold, again, as I was monitoring events in the city – what happened there could have happened in any city in America last night – that’s the reality of it, that’s the sadness of it – the idea that in the 21st Century that something like that could in fact happen. 45 years in the business – never seen anything quite like it in terms of a directed attack against police officers very specifically because they were wearing a blue uniform. It’s something that we cannot tolerate. We cannot tolerate racial injustice. We can also not tolerate injustice directed against our police forces.

Thank you. Chief Galati?

Chief of Intelligence Thomas Galati, NYPD: Good afternoon. As the Mayor and the Police Commissioner said, we are tracking numerous threats right now, but, right now, we don’t consider any of those threats credible. What we do have is – starting on Wednesday, after the Baton Rouge incident, we started receiving threats – that’s not uncommon after an incident like that, that we get an increase of threats to New York City police officers specifically. We started tracking them, and, as the events unfolded through the week, just in the meeting we had about an hour ago, we had 15 – we actually received two more, so we are tracking right now a total of 17 threats. Some of them, we’ve already identified the people involved. We spoke to them and we’ve deemed them not to be a threat to us. Some of them, we are looking for the individuals that have posted the threats. The threats come in, in many different ways. They’re posted on Twitter or Facebook. Some of them are called in. Some come in through the [inaudible] hotline and some come in through the Crime-Stoppers. You know, we encourage anybody that overhears or hears of anybody that wants to harm police officers to please contact us in those manners. 

Commissioner Bratton: Chief O’Neill will update you on the events of last evening, as well as what’s planned for the upcoming weekend. Chief O’Neill?

Chief of Department James O’Neill, NYPD: Good afternoon, everyone. So, to start off, I’m going to talk a little bit about what we’re doing for the men and women of the NYPD. I did issue a couple of messages last night, as did Carlos Gomez, to double up on patrol, to make sure nobody’s out there by themselves, and also to make sure we have station house security in front of all the precincts, districts, and PSA’s. In my role as Chief of Department, I have to keep all the people of this great city safe, but I also have to make sure that we keep our cops safe. I know each and every one of the 36,000 men and women of this police department saw what transpired in Dallas last night, and I’m sure it had a profound effect on all of them. So, we have to make sure that not just the leadership of the NYPD, but the great people of this city have to make sure that they understand the sacrifices made by all the men and women in this great police department every day. So, I just want to make sure that message is out there. If you see what’s transpired over the last couple of years – not only the last 25 years – the last couple of years – how we’ve changed this police department with the neighborhood policing program – we’ve come a long way, and I don’t want to lose that ground. It’s important that we continue forward and we continue to have that connectivity to the communities that we’re sworn to protect and serve, and that this is meaningful stuff. We’ve made a lot of progress and I don’t want to see us fall back. I’ve been in this business a long time – not as long as the Commissioner – and what I saw last night is truly heartbreaking. 

So, last night, we had a demonstration up in Union Square – it started up in Union Square Park. It started around 5 o’clock. They stepped off – they marched – it started around 5:40 in the afternoon. They went up – I think they went west bound on 14th, went up to 5th Avenue, broke off into a couple of different groups. We had the appropriate number of resources. They did, at one point, try to get on the West Side Highway – we blocked them there and they doubled back, reconstituting on 42nd Street. They went to 4-2 and 7th, where we had a number of people – I think, at peak, the number that we’ve given out is probably 1,200 protestors. We asked [inaudible] to clear the street at 4-2 and 7. Most people complied. We did end up arresting 37 people at 4-2 and 7 last night, and that was for blocking vehicular traffic. They cleared the street and they continued separate marches. At one point, we had another three groups out there. We had another series of arrests at 57th Street and 5th Avenue – that was about four arrests – and then at 7-6 and 5, we had an additional arrest. The last group dispersed around 2 o’clock in the morning, and that was up north of 110th Street.

So, there are a number of events planned today. I think there was an additional event planned at Union Square – Union Square Park. We’ll make sure we have the appropriate resources to deal with it as we did last night. And, going through the weekend, we have additional staff on-hand to make sure that people do have the opportunity to protest, but there’s a point that comes when we respect the rights of the protesters, but they also have to respect the rights of the other people in this great city. So, we do have a number of events through the weekend, but, again, we are appropriately staffed. 

So, thank you very much.

Unknown: Let’s open it up to some on-topic questions. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: That’s correct. We unfortunately had our own experience that was remarkably similar except for the incredible loss of life in this event. So we learned a lot both in terms of dealing with the demonstrations, gathering of intelligence beforehand, during the events, after. And one of the things that we always take seriously in any time are threats against our officers. And so each of these is not treated callously. They are investigated very thoroughly. And that’s why we’re in a position to say at this particular point in time – we don’t deem that any of them are credible, but at the same time – abundance of caution, and we do have the resources to very quickly ramp up security at our station houses, doubling up officers on patrol. We also – in terms of being able to deal with the demonstrations – that we learned a lot from two years ago. We now have the Strategic Response Group who are all specially trained to deal with that particular issue – crowd management, crowd control – backed up by the Critical Response Command. So we have effectively over 1,100 officers that we did not have a couple of years ago to help police those events.

Question: On that issue – it turns out that this suspect – is believed that he was a member of the U.S. Army. Now you have officers that have long guns that might have been able to do something that the officers in Dallas – didn’t appear many of them had long guns. So he was a member of the U.S. Army – we don’t know how much or what his experience there was. Does that change your thinking in terms of –

Commissioner Bratton: Well, I think one of the things that we should note relative to last night’s event – I referenced it could happen in any American city, town, or village at any time. We’re a country awash in weapons – 300 million of them. And I forget the last count of how many of these AR-15-type long guns are out there – the tens of millions. We have consciously increased the number of long guns and officers trained to use them, so that at any given time, at any hour of the day, we have very significant numbers of personnel that have those weapons available, as well as the heavier tactical gear. I think we’ll probably find last night that some of those officers were killed even though they were wearing vests – that the military-style weapon and some of the ammunition that those weapons use will penetrate vests. And to that end, the new vests that we’re issuing our officers have a customized plate that will hopefully defend against that type of round if they encounter it. But the benefit we have in this city is we don’t have a call-up SWAT team. At any given time, Emergency Service – probably the most highly trained police in America – are out in the field in significant numbers, and they’re now backed up by CRC and SRG, all of whom have long guns in their vehicles also. So it’s part of the ramping up that the Mayor supported with the 1,300 additional cops – plus all the money to buy all of those vehicles, the long guns – and are constantly trained with them.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I don’t have any specifics on that. We can get information for you on that one. Yes?

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I’ll ask Chief O’Neill to speak to that – that again, we will ensure that everybody – their constitutional rights are protected. But if they engage in significant acts that go outside those constitutional protections, we will – as we did last night in 40 instances – make arrests where appropriate. Jimmy?

Chief O’Neill: I don’t have a lot to add to that. But just to echo what the Commissioner said that we’re here to facilitate that – people have a right to protest. A lot of emotions in the country right now, but again there comes a point when that starts to interfere with the rights of other New Yorkers – we need to step forward and make summary arrests.

Question: [Inaudible]

Chief O’Neill: Our tactics change with what we see, so I’m not going into great detail what our tactics are. But there will be the appropriate number of people out there.

Mayor: Let me just add to that. Very, very clear protocol that we have with the protests – the police will instruct the protesters as to what’s appropriate to do, where’s it’s appropriate to be, and they’ll make very, very clear to the protesters what those limits are. We do not want to see anything that would create a harm to anyone. We do not want to see traffic delayed more than it has to be, so there’s going to be clear, clear lines. And the protesters need to be very clear about the fact that once the police warn them that they are suspect to arrest, that’s a very, very serious statement – and that anyone who does not abide by the instructions of the police will be arrested. But I also want to urge all the protestors to really recognize the pain that our police are going through right now and to be very respectful. The police are there to protect their First Amendment rights. Protesters owe it to the police to be respectful. You can speak up for whatever cause you believe in. But at a time like this in particular, such a difficult and painful time for our police and their families – show some decency and respect for people going through so much.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Commissioner Bratton: I’m sorry – what was that?

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Our interest is staying out of the politics of the moment that – not to provide photo-ops. If Mr. Trump wants to speak to me, I’d be happy to brief him on what we’re doing. Senator Clinton wants to speak to me – I’d be very happy to brief her on what we’re doing. But we’re not in the business of providing photo-ops for our candidates.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: My understanding is there may have been a request made to attend a roll call – I believe that was something. I’ve also had – basically an inquiry from Senator Clinton about setting up a call to be briefed on what’s going on here in New York. And again, I’m more than happy to speak to either one of them in that regard. We’re also – we’ll be in conversation, I think you’re aware, with Secretary Johnson later in the day, who’s in the area. And we’ll be hoping to do probably some type of availability with him later in the day if our respective schedules can be brought together.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: That remains an individual choice. What we in the NYP will do – NYPD will do – as the Mayor has echoed – is that we will protect the rights of everybody to operate within the law. It’s a shared responsibility. If you want to come out and demonstrate – well come out and demonstrate legally and appropriately, and not make it more difficult for the police as well as those that are seeking to have their voices heard by having those voices distracted from by unnecessary violence, or disruption, or illegalities. So we are perfectly capable of working, as we have for many years, to allow people to demonstrate. No city in America has more experience in this area than us. But at the same time that – if they get out of hand, we’ll deal with that appropriately. But if people want to come out, they should feel free that we will do our best to protect their right to demonstrate, their right to demonstrate within the law.

Question: For the Mayor [inaudible]

Mayor: No – same position.

Question: Why?

Mayor: Just because I think it’s – for all the reasons we’ve seen over the years. I think we have to strike a balance in terms of improving police-community relations, while keeping this city safe. And I just have the same view I have had for the last few years on that matter.

Question: Commissioner Bratton, [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Well I think there’s a combination of feelings – certainly grief, sadness, solidarity – that these events tend to bring police closer together, and also bring police and community closer together. We saw that during our own tragedy here with Detectives Liu and Ramos – the two largest police funerals ever held in the United States were in this city. Within two weeks of each other, 25,000 police officers from all over the country. I think you’ll see certainly something equal to that down in Dallas in the week or so ahead. But we also saw a phenomenal outpouring of support from the community in the briefing we had this morning with the Mayor. It was discussed that – just what’s going on in terms of a lot of the community leaders that our borough chiefs had begun to reach out to – were already reaching out to the borough chiefs, the precinct captains, the community affairs officers – just to express their grief and their condolences. So that’s the opportunity we shouldn’t lose – to take advantage of the opportunity to bring us together rather than tear us apart. And all credit to police officers who have a right to feel angry, a right to feel in some respects afraid, in a sense, because they’re out there out visibly in that blue uniform. And last night they were targeted because they were wearing that blue uniform. But they still go out there and do their job. And the vast, vast majority of them do it admirably well. And that’s what we would expect. But again, these tragedies – out of the tragedy, let’s try to find some good that might – may come out of it.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: No I actually – I actually don’t think that will be the case that watching, as many of you have been watching, the various interviews coming out of Dallas. Dallas celebrates that it has a special relationship – its police department with its community. It is like we are here in New York – we celebrate that we are a neighborhood police organization. And Chief O’Neill, Chief Gomez – certainly, as you are well aware over these last two years – have been really seeking to build new partnerships with the NCO programs and the pilot precinct programs. So – no I don’t see this creating an alienation – the relationships are still there – they were there before the event. Again, this oftentimes brings people closer together rather than pulling them apart.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Well, I think all of us were surprised with the horrendous aspect of it – in other words, the targeting of police officers very specifically in that one individual in taking as many lives as he did in just such a short period of time. And we’ve talked often times in this city about the concern about the lone wolf, rather than a repeat of a 9/11 type of event. And so much of what we geared up from here – counterterrorism, intelligence – is to try and identify that lone wolf before the fact. We will be very interested in this [inaudible] investigation with the FBI as to what was known this individual beforehand. Was his act very similar to the incident that we had [inaudible] Texas back in 2014 – the spontaneous act rather than something that was planned over time. We will be very interested in understanding that as we try to understand any of these attacks. But it just drives home that the incredible change we have, not only protecting against terrorism, but to protect against this form of crime – so many guns out there in the carnage that one individual is able to carry out in such a short period of time.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: We’ve [inaudible] you probably listened to us ad nauseam talk about the trust that is the basis of the foundation upon the other four T’s – terrorism, technology, attacking crime. With Chief O’Neill and Chief Gomez have designed that in many aspects is more [inaudible] from what I did in Boston in the 1970s. It was this idea of trying to find ways in which we can police inclusively – that we build trust rather than tear it down. You know, I think we do have a lot of overtime [inaudible]. We’ve clearly seen that that model of policing in this city has reduced crime by phenomenal amounts. On Monday, we’ll be talking with you about the six-month crime stats for the beginning of this year, which is one of the best in the history of this city. Look at the area of use of firearms by this Department. I have 36,000 cops. In 2015, they used their firearms a total of 65 times – 36,000 cops in the City, eight-and-a-half million people. And I think 36 of those or something like that were combat situations. So, we have effectively worked with communities over the years to build a degree of trust and calm. It has made the city a much safer place in the process. We are working very hard to have much more personal trust. That’s what the NCO’s are all about; that’s what the [inaudible] is all about. If people see a face – and I’ll also point out that [inaudible] close to 60 percent of our officers live in this city. They love these neighborhoods and they love these communities. So, it’s not the idea that we have an occupying army in New York City. Their families are here, their parents are here, they live here. That’s a big head start for us.

Mayor: I’m going to add to that. I really want to urge you to spend time with the NCO’s. I’ve already had the occasion to talk to a number including as recently as on Monday in Staten Island. And you ask the officers what it has meant for them to be able to build a deeper relationship with the community – the enthusiasm is unbelievable. I give a lot of credit to Chief O’Neill and Chief Gomez for what they created. Officers talk consistently – every neighborhood that I’ve been in – about the respect they have received from neighborhood members, the information they have gotten, people seek them out, and offer them leads and tips. And then when you talk to community members – I remember a few weeks back at Bushwick Houses in Brooklyn the community leaders went out of their way to seek me out and tell me how important it was to them to have the relationship with the officer; how much they wanted it as several officers had been assigned to those houses on an ongoing basis that hadn’t been the reality before. So, we’ve talked with everyday New Yorkers who are now experiencing neighborhood policing. It’s such an important change in their lives. It’s very personal to everyone involved. I would urge you to go out and listen to some of these stories because it is a very different approach to policing. It’s sort of – it’s one that’s been hoped for and dreamed of for decades, but this team is the first to actually make it work and I think it’s going to change and build that trust; [inaudible] to build that trust for the long haul in this city.

Commissioner Bratton: If I can continue building on that for a just a moment. I’m just looking in the back of the room and I see Chief Joanne Jaffe, who is very well-known to you – heads up our Community Affairs Bureau. And the hundreds of officers that work for [inaudible]; this summer for example they were basically providing opportunities for thousands, tens of thousands of young people to go to camp, to go to programs throughout the summer months. That is part of the community partnership. [Inaudible] program, which we expanded throughout the City has had great success in terms of building relationships with so many of these grandmothers who are taking care of grandkids because the parents are no longer there to take care of them. There’s also the initiatives that have been created – one of the things she’s doing this morning is reaching out to our 250 Clergy Council individually – reaching out to every one of them to enlist their support, to – what are you doing for the community, what can we do for the community? So, while we have created this neighborhood policing initiative it on a strong foundation of what was already in existence here and is constantly expanding.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: We have that capability – we are waiting to determine exactly what they utilized in terms of Dallas. In light of what Dallas was facing, I [inaudible] fully support of that. This is an individual that killed five police officers [inaudible] putting more officers lives at risk. So, God bless him.

Question: [Inaudible]

Chief Galati: I felt sad after, you know, events like this. We usually get an increase of threats to police officers, and they come in many different ways. You know, people overhear somebody talking about wanting to do something – maybe a family member calling; some of the threats are posted online via Twitter. Some of them are posting on Facebook urging people to go out and, you know, do something against police officers. Some of them come from other law enforcement agencies that notify us. So again, in multiple ways and as I said earlier we’ll investigate. Officer safety is very important to us and we’ll investigate every one of them fully. And like I say, right now we don’t deem any of them to be credible at this point.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I’m sorry I can’t hear your question, after Ferguson –

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I was not supportive of that call being quite frank with you. There was no data [inaudible] the equipment they were issued and equipment they didn’t need, but, as we’ve clearly seen, events in America in the last several years have indicated we need to equip our officers with the appropriate equipment to deal with the threats they face. We’re in the process of actually modernizing all of our Emergency Service Unit equipment. We are buying the latest state of the art equipment thanks to the Mayor and the funding he’s providing. So, they will be replacing literally all of the equipment ESU uses, all of the armor trucks, etc. We need state of the art technology to do the best we can to protect our officers because, as they protect themselves, they are also protecting the public. Case-in-point that we had a 1950s era armored personnel carrier that would be utilized to rescue injured officers and civilians in the event of an incident. That was recalled [inaudible] by the federal government [inaudible] basically 60 years old and we’ve never misused a piece of equipment that we’ve had. So I think that particular issue needs to be refocused on. I think we are painting with too broad a brush at that particular point in time. There is no denying some departments will appropriately use what they have, but to basically paint with a broad brush that is very inappropriate. I know the expertise of my department, the NYPD. Certainly, I’m very comfortable utilizing what we have very appropriately.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Yes, and, I’ve said before, it’s time for mutual respect. And anyone who wants to exercise their first amendment rights, we’re here to defend that, but there needs to be just some humanity there – some recognition of our common humanity. We have five public servants killed in cold blood, their families are in tremendous pain, their communities are in tremendous pain – it’s being felt all over the country. That needs to be respected. And, at the same time, as someone who feels it’s important to go out and speak for the changes we need in this country – and I don’t think anyone denies that we need to make some serious changes – we need to have a much better dialogue in this country that will lead to those changes. But that will only work if there is respect and an effort to de-escalate tensions rather than increase them. So, I would say that anyone who is going out to protest – show respect for the officers who are protecting you and certainly follow their instructions.

Unknown: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Thank you.