Pols rip Dermot Shea for defense of violent NYPD social-distancing arrests

The city council and public advocate offered a searing rebuke to NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea — slamming him for defending cops’ aggressive social-distancing arrests, as the department deals with the fallout of another controversial video.

“I know you’re just trying to defend your officers, but in truth you’re doing the opposite and causing people to distrust you and your officers even more,” Councilman Donovan Richards said during a Thursday budget hearing, in response to the top cop’s claims that officers are getting death threats over videos that appear to show them aggressively arresting people flouting social distancing.

“Did you say, ‘This is the last thing we want our cops doing’? … No, you come out in your own version of a fighting stance, saying, ‘Don’t criticize the NYPD or cops will get killed,'” added Richards, who serves as chairman of the council’s public safety committee, which oversees the NYPD. 

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams piled on during the budget hearing, telling the commissioner that “folks are tired of being told they’re not feeling what they’re feeling.”

Shea passionately defended his cops Wednesday in response to the recent backlash from violent social-distancing arrests captured on camera and racial disparities in enforcement.

“I will also not have my police department called a racist police department,” said Shea, claiming that the outrage has led to death threats against cops.

The condemnation came less than a day after officers were involved in another controversial video in the subway in which a woman was arrested in front of her young child after she cursed at cops while refusing to wear a mask properly.

“It shouldn’t have gone down that way, period. It does not reflect our values,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday morning.

“Whatever else was going on in that video, whatever else was happening in that moment, we should never have a situation where a mom with her child ends up under arrest for that kind of offense, it’s just not right.”

Shea said Thursday the officers involved were handing out masks prior to the encounter, which quickly escalated with “terrible profanity” and the woman threatening to cough on cops.

“The officers did not accost her … they approached her professionally and asked her to put a mask on,” Shea said. “Listen, I think the whole incident is horrendous. I feel bad for the child, I feel bad for the woman, I feel bad for the cops.”

“Shame on us all if we allow this to go backward.”

Additional reporting by Julia Marsh