President Trump’s endorsement will not affect New York Police Department
US President Donald Trump has campaigned for reelection on a law-and-order agenda in recent months. He is portraying himself as a counterweight to the police reform protests that erupted across the United States. On Tuesday, the New York Police Department said that a police union’s endorsement of President Trump shouldn’t sway how officers treat people who protest or vote against the president. The Chief of NYPD, Terence Monahan said, “When we put on this uniform, we are apolitical. We have no stance in one way or another”. Point to be noted that the city’s largest police union, Police Benevolent Association broke with a longstanding tradition of not endorsing presidential candidates and threw its support behind Trump in August. Most police officers also support President Trump.
They are viewing him as more of an ally to their pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement than his Democratic rival Joe Biden. The Benevolent Association called concerns about officers’ impartiality hysterical nonsense. The Union went on Twitter and said, “Every year, NYC cops protect the right of ALL voters to cast their ballot in peace”. A Democrat, De Blasio said he didn’t think officers would let their personal political views bleed into their professional responsibilities. Blasio said, “You’re going to have police officers that have views across the spectrum, but I also think we’ve seen overwhelmingly officers leave their politics at home and they go and do what has to be done to keep people safe and to respect peaceful protest”.
Blasio added, “Any officer who can’t or won’t do that we have to discipline and we have to address, but I don’t get an indication that that is a widespread challenge”. Monahan said, ″We have one role and that’s to keep people safe to make sure anyone can come in and vote. So there will be no incidences of police officers using their political opinions”. The deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism John Miller and Monahan said there were no specific credible threats to the city regarding this election. It is noteworthy that the NYPD will deploy personnel to each of the city’s 88 early voting sites and 1,200 Election Day polling places, as required by law. The department will have teams of officers ready to respond to election-related incidents.