December 29, 2014 AlterNet has obtained emails revealing plans to organize a series of anti-de Blasio protests around the city until the summer of 2015. Billed as a non-partisan movement in support of “the men and women of the NYPD,” the protests are being orchestrated by a cast of NYPD union bosses and local Republican activists allied with Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor who recently called on de Blasio to “say you’re sorry to [NYPD officers] for having created a false impression of them.” The first rally is planned to take place at Queens Borough Hall at noon on January 13. Joe Concannon, a failed Republican State Senate candidate and current president of the Tea Party-aligned Queens Village Republican Club, is the main organizer of the burgeoning anti-de Blasio protest effort. The retired NYPD captain and former Giuliani advisor is a close ally of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch. Lynch generated national headlines — and cheers from rank and file cops — when he claimed that de Blasio “has blood on [his] hands” just hours after Ismaaiyl Brinsley murdered Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. In an email exchange with a supporter, Concannon said he and his allies had filed papers to found a non-profit to fund the anti-de Blasio campaign. The January 13 Queens demonstration would be among the largest, according to Concannon. Major rallies in March in Breezy Point, Queens and at City Hall were also in the works, he said. In a separate email dated December 26 and titled, “Support Your Police rallies,” Concannon declared the onset of a campaign he dubbed Operation All Out. “Everyone MUST get out and support these fine men and women,” he implored several NYPD associates. Jack Coughlin, the treasurer of the NYPD Superior Officers Association, responded by proposing “a rally held in Breezy Point in March when the weather will be better [that] could attract thousands of pro-cop supporters to counter the professional anti-cop organizers.” Coughlin went on to urge Concannon to pressure Republican representatives Peter King and Lee Zeldin and NY GOP State Chairman Ed Cox to “get the House Homeland Committee to hold public hearings on whos financing Al Sharptons anti-cop protest.” National Police Defense Foundation executive director Joseph Occhipinti chimed in to offer help in coordinating the demonstrations. “I would suggest that everything go through the [Patrick Lynch’s Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association] for any organized protests,” he added. A former agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Occhipinti was convicted in 1991 of conducting illegal searches and narrowly escaped jail time for allegedly stealing $16,000 from his victims. When the US attorney who secured his conviction, Jeh Johnson, was appointed by Obama to direct the Department of Homeland Security last year, Occhipinti rushed to the right-wing writer Charles C. Johnson to complain. The anger coursing through the ranks of the NYPD is driving union bosses like Lynch to ratchet up their rhetoric against the mayor. Lynch is up for election soon and seems desperate to channel the resentment of his constituents. Meanwhile, Republican operatives see a chance to do fatal damage to a rising Democratic star and close Clinton ally by resurrecting the kind of racial backlash politics that won them urban white votes during the Nixon era.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 22:23:40 +0000
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