The repeated video clips of black men gunned down by police officers in recent months left new NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill rattled as both a cop and a citizen.
“I don’t know about a pattern, but there are some videos that I absolutely acknowledge that it doesn’t look right to me,” O’Neill said during a Thursday sitdown with the Daily News Editorial Board.
“I don’t want to go into any one individually, but at times it is disturbing. It’s very disturbing. … It does, at times, cause me great angst.”
The latest chilling videotape made public captured the Sept. 16 shooting of an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Okla., after his car broke down in the middle of the street.
The officer was charged Thursday with manslaughter.
At the same time, the killing of a 43-year-old black man in Charlotte set off rioting this week when authorities refused to release video of this past Tuesday’s shooting.
Cops claimed the man ignored repeated demands by officers to drop his gun — but neighbors said the victim was armed with nothing more than a book.
O’Neill declined to discuss specific cases, but he left no doubt the killings earlier this year in South Carolina, Louisiana and Minnesota affected the 34,500-member force now under his command.
“It’s a small world, and it makes our job much more difficult,” said O’Neill. “There’s an immediate impact on New York. I think we’re a victim of broad-brushing at times.”
O’Neill answered questions for more than an hour during his first extensive interview since taking over the department from Bill Bratton this past Saturday — the same day an accused terrorist set off a bomb in Chelsea, injuring 31 people.
The city’s top cop, a police officer since 1983, said he’s tried to take a step back and remain objective about the racially divisive slayings.
“I’m a human being first, besides being a cop, (and) some of them are real disturbing,” said O’Neill. “Some of them, especially over the last couple of months, were really hard to look at.”
The national outcry after the shootings of the black men, many during motor vehicle stops, tended to drown out the positive policing developments in New York, said O’Neill.
“I think one of the main things that’s frustrating to me is the lack of acknowledgment of our evolution and significant change,” he said. “We are moving forward.”
For example, the city’s cops fired their guns in just 67 instances last year while policing 8.4 million New Yorkers.
O’Neill said the current national unrest was one of the motivations behind the NYPD’s embrace of community policing — encouraging officers to behave more like the beat cops of yore.
“The big idea here is to make sure that the cops have enough time every day to do something besides answer radio runs,” he told The News.
“I think this is going to go a long way in making things better in New York City. Get out of your car, walk down the street, say hello. A lot of it is as simple as saying hello.”
The community policing program is already in place in 26 of the city’s police precincts. Eventually, the officers will spend 30% of their 81/2-hour shifts moving among the locals.
“I think this is the best part about it,” the commissioner said. “Our expectation is that cops are going to have that connection to the community. Who knows better than the community what’s (happening) on that block?”
The move to the community policing model comes after what O’Neill described as the “stop and frisk debacle” of the Raymond Kelly years. The NYPD drastically reduced its use of the controversial tactic after a federal judge ruled some of the ways the NYPD was using it unconstitutional in 2013.
O’Neill said the new methods won’t come with a move away from combating quality of life crimes championed by his predecessor.
“Quality of life policing is critical to the safety of everybody in New York City,” said O’Neill, who has swapped his old NYPD blues for a new suit.
“The reason I know that is if you go to a community council meeting, a tenant association meeting, what do people complain about? They’re not complaining about people getting shot.”
Those people, thanks to distribution of smart phones throughout the department, can now contact officers at their local police precinct via text or email.
“In the long run,” O’Neill said, “it’s going to end up reducing 911 calls and 311 calls.”
The 58-year-old commissioner — known to friends and colleagues as Jimmy — said the new community approach would also give street cops a new crime-fighting focus.
“It’s a very small percentage of the population in New York City that’s involved in crime,” he said. “If the same cops are there every day, they know who the good people are — which is the vast majority of them. . . . It’s going to have a real effect on what goes on. It’s precision policing.”
O’Neill expressed confidence the city’s already record low crime rate would continue its remarkable decline.
“The ship’s going to turn slowly,” said O’Neill. “It’s not a magic wand that’s going to change (everything) overnight in the city.”
