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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNYPD Disrespect Continues, De Blasio Heckled And Booed At Cadet Graduation (VIDEO)
At one point during his speech, de Blasio said:
“You will confront all manner of problems. Problems that you didn’t create.”
At this statement, a heckler shouted:
“You created them!”
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/29/nypd-disrespect-continues-de-blasio-heckled-and-booed-at-cadet-graduation-video/
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AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)AND cadets.
onenote
(42,609 posts)The chain of command ends with the Police Commissioner. And cadets aren't employees yet.
And I'm curious: should police be fired for cheering a mayor? Or is your view of the First Amendment that its okay for the government to suppress speech so long as its speech that's critical of the government?
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)...before it is no longer considered, 'speech'?
onenote
(42,609 posts)Is dancing speech? Is art speech?
What the heck do you think is speech?
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)...then rubbing the mayors nose in it because he has a black son free speech?
He needs to fire the police commissioner, whom is a mayoral appointee.
onenote
(42,609 posts)Booing the mayor or anyone else is. But nice avoidance of answering the question of what you think constitutes protected speech.
Kind of basic First Amendment stuff that any progressive ought to understand.
By the way, what should de Blasio, who hired the Police Commissioner, give as the reason for firing him? That he allowed police officers to exercise their First Amendment rights?
Should a Police Commissioner be fired if police officers under his command applaud the mayor? Are you advocating that that the government punish speech it doesn't like? Sure sounds like it.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)nt
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)...because the mayor has a black kid free speech?
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)...and MIRT team free speech?
Should there be limits to speech within certain organizations? Can I say anything I want to about my boss in his face at work without being fired, because it's free speech? Can you call your boss a wanker in front of everyone at work, cuz you know, it's free speech?
Can firemen just stop putting out fires and call it 'free speech'?
If cops showed up and did their jobs wearing KKK sheets, would that be free speech?
Do you believe there should be any limits whatsoever to 'free speech' in the workplace?
Should people be able to go to work naked because, after all, it's free speech?
onenote
(42,609 posts)First, DU is not the government and the actions of the DU Jury do not constitute state action. The action of the Mayor of New York is state action. The First Amendment doesn't apply to the former. It does to the latter. This is the kind of basic First Amendment stuff I would have thought anyone participating on a progressive discussion board would understand, but apparently you've proven me wrong about that.
Anyway, your post about the mayor needing to fire cops (and cadets) was a direct response to a post about how the mayor was heckled and booed at a cadet graduation ceremony. So I'm not sure what all of your comments about wearing KKK sheets, not performing their duties, working naked etc. has to do with the vocalization of an opinion at a ceremony with your claim that booing a public official be considered a firing offense. Hey, maybe you think that voting against an elected official ought to be a firing offense too.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Nor does it apply to online communities. A workplace can implement whatever rules necessary, including controlling speech.
onenote
(42,609 posts)As I pointed out, the First Amendment doesn't apply to private speech. So you're right it doesn't apply when a private employer wants to fire an employee.
But it does apply to public employees, as was made clear by Justice Marshall in Pickering v. Board of Education in 1968 holding that speech on a matter of public concern by a public employee, even if critical of a nominal supervisor, is protected by the First Amendment. To paraphrase Marshall, the suggestion that public employees may constitutionally be compelled to relinquish the First Amendment rights they would otherwise enjoy as citizens to comment on matters of public interest proceeds on a premise that has been unequivocally rejected in numerous prior decisions of the Supreme Court.
Finally, to the extent you are suggesting that online communities can implement whatever rules they want regarding the speech of their members, you would get no argument from me, since as I made clear, the First Amendment doesn't apply to private action. But the statement that the First Amendment doesn't apply to online communities is utterly false insofar as it might be read as suggesting online communities have no First Amendment protection against state action: if the government tried to shut down DU, it would face a lawsuit. And it would lose.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)I am a public employee.
onenote
(42,609 posts)and were fired, you would have a very strong lawsuit.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)We would be fired.
onenote
(42,609 posts)if your heckling and booing of a graduation speaker clearly was expressing criticism of them on a matter of public concern, you might get fired, but you'd win your lawsuit.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)A certain standard level of decorum is required in our jobs. Booing and heckling guest speakers while on the job does not meet that standard.
former9thward
(31,949 posts)No thanks...
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)As do my co-workers. We aren't allowed to be assholes on the job. Gasp!
Oh, and thank you for that wonderful personal attack! It made my day!
onenote
(42,609 posts)The Constitution calls it speech.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Have a good day!
onenote
(42,609 posts)I have a better day.
Don't hold your breath waiting for any government agency to fire someone for booing an elected official. No one can hold their breath that long.
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)There is no Constitutional right to work as a police officer. If they cannot demonstrate that they are professional and orderly in their conduct, then how can they be trusted to uphold law and order?
onenote
(42,609 posts)These are well-settled legal principles. And booing and/or turning one's back on a public official are without question considered expressive speech.
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)It's part of the contract you sign to take the position. You can and will be fired from your civil service position if you use certain speech, even while protected expressive speech, on the job.
onenote
(42,609 posts)How is the "certain" speech defined? And by definition, if it's "protected" expressive speech, you cannot be fired for it. It's PROTECTED -- get it?
Sure, you can't express criticism of the mayor by throwing a shoe at him. But turning your back or expressing displeasure by booing? Of course that's protected.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Even though that's legal. I believe the reason has been along the lines of it being disruptive to their employers' work.
onenote
(42,609 posts)which is the constitutional standard.
This isn't that hard if you bother to spend a few minutes actually reading the leading cases.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)in furtherance of another motive is not protected.
Given the nature of what's going on...
onenote
(42,609 posts)and please provide a citation.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)nt
branford
(4,462 posts)There is an entire body of constitutional and labor law dealing with expression by public employees, in and out of uniform, on and off-duty. The law strongly favors public employees.
Back-turning or a little booing, a common, recognized and peaceful means of objecting to authority figures, done to an elected politician, not directly in your chain of command, mostly by officers not officially on duty, concerning matters arguably the subject of collective bargaining (e.g., officer safety), and performed as part of a collective labor action, under the the strongly pro-labor rules and regulations of NYS and NYC, and with very protective union contracts, will not justify discipline, no less termination.
Apart from the legal prohibitions, as a practical and political matter, even the suggestion of discipline is entirely untenable in NYC. Moreover, Mayor deBlasio is not some wimp or victim, and shouldn't be treated as such.. If he truly could deal with police union political opposition, which is not the case, he would be perceived as unfit to be mayor.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)They are disrespecting THEIR BOSSES who is represented by this mayor. And if their bosses had been happy with their work, de Blasio would not have won that election.
There are plenty of reasons to start firing members of the most corrupt Department. Too bad Bloomberg didn't mind all the corruption so long as they WORKED FOR HIM, which he stated.
Is it your view that the NYPD is autonomous, not answerable to the people of NYC?
They could start firing those who were 'fixing' tickets, manipulating Crime Stats among other things.
But I would NOT fire them for showing their true colors, in fact I am so glad that the people are seeing them for what they are. An out of control, abusive, corrupt, disrespectful militarized force who do not seem to know who PAYS their salaries.
Most of them do not live in NYC, they come from Nassau and Suffolk Cos, Staten Island, NJ suburbs and de Blasio wants to change that to some extent, to hire people who are part of the communities they are hired to police.
They of course don't like that. They don't like the people who are paying them.
And a whole lot of those people do not like them very much either.
onenote
(42,609 posts)Not in a Democracy with a First Amendment. That's about as basic as it gets.
My view, which is pretty clearly stated, is simply that those advocating that the police and/or cadets that booed the mayor and/or turned their back on him cannot constitutionally be fired for that reason, as some here have advocated.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)When subordinates, which the cops are though they appear to think otherwise, lie blatantly about something as serious as murder, they certainly should be called to account for it.
Free speech doesn't mean you are free from consequences. I know what would happen to most people no matter what their jobs are, if they publicly blamed their boss for MURDER, erroneously.
You seem to be saying we ought to treat the police differently from everyone else. Why?
de Blasio is not responsible for the bloodshed that occurred as a result of a lunatic with a gun.
Yet this is the lie being told by the PBA. That is an abuse of the 1st Amendment which was never intended to give carte blanche to liars to attack elected officials with. I'd like to see that in the Constitution.
Badly behaved employees generally don't last long in their jobs. Now why should cops be held to a much lower standard than any other worker?
onenote
(42,609 posts)First, this isn't about threats. Its about booing and heckling and turning one's back on someone. Not threats.If someone theatens someone with violence, that's not commenting on a matter of public concerns and its not protected. But blaming your boss for murder (figuratively, not literally) isn't a threat and its protected speech.
Let's pause a moment on that concept, which you and others seem not to grasp: the First Amendment protects against "state" (i.e., governmental) action directed against a speaker to censor or punish speech.
It doesn't protect against private action. That's why the courts have been clear -- and I've been clear -- that public employees ARE treated differently than everyone else in the sense that a private employee can be censored or punished for his or her speech by his or her private employer. The state can't punish that private employee, however. Which is why the state, when it is an employer, can't punish or censor its employees: Otherwise, someone who works for the government would be required to subject themselves to state-mandated censorship that no private person can be subjected to.
So are subject to different treatment than "everyone else"? If by everyone else you mean people not employed by the state, the answer is yes. If you mean other people empoyed by the state, such as teachers, and agency staff, etc.: no, they're not treated differently. THey're treated the same, meaning that just as the court has protected school employees from state-imposed punishment when they criticized the elected members of the school board, so too the courts will protect the police when they criticize the elected mayor.
No deBlasio isn't responsible fpr the bloodshed that occurred as result of a lunatic with a gun. But if someone wants to be of the opinion that he was, that opinion is protected speech. The Supreme Court has held that even when a public employee levels a factually inaccurate criticism against a public official, the employee's speech is protected unless it meets the almost unattainable bar of being knowlingly false. And since the statements about deBlasio aren't literal, but hyperbolic and figurative, they can't be shown to be knowingly false - like many criticisms, they are a mixture of fact and opinion.
What concerns me the most is that the authors and proponents of First Amendment protection for public employees are the progressive justices on the court. Justice Marshall wrote the majority opinion in the leading case. Justice Douglas concurred, indicating he would have provided even greater protection than the majority. In 2006, the Court issued a heavily criticized 5-4 decision that took a unexpectedly narrow view of the scope of protections afforded a public employee. The majority: Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy. The dissenters: Ginsburg, Stevens Souter and Breyer.
Just last term, however, the court seemed to back away somewhat from its 2006 decision and reaffirmed the importance of protecting the free speech rights of public employees.
Maybe that's not the Constitution you want. Maybe you think that if the government can punish those who work for it for expressing themselves critically regarding elected officials, that it will only use that power against those with whom you disagree. I, on the other hand, am much more certain that if the government can silence its employees, it will come back to bite us in the ass.
This isn't that hard. The case law is out there to be read.
former9thward
(31,949 posts)branford
(4,462 posts)and many Staten Islanders also wish they could secede.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)branford
(4,462 posts)Police officers report to the police commissioner. That does not mean police officers report to the mayor.
This distinction is potentially dispositive as a legal matter concerning authority and discipline under the relevant collective bargaining agreements, as well as constitutional and statutory analysis. For instance, you cannot disobey an order from someone who has no capacity to issue you an order.
Further, the police commissioner cannot legally require police officers to provide political support to the mayor, and in most circumstances, even active political opposition will be considered a protected activity.
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)Yes I said that.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)offer his resignation if he feels such an ass-kicking unwarranted.
WTF????
1step
(380 posts)Simple!
HipChick
(25,485 posts)
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Arrests and police activity in general is down by enormous amounts - this counts as an illegal work stoppage. Doesn't New York labor law prohibit public servants, especially in public safety, from engaging in work stoppages?
de Blasio needs to be firing cops. And when they start squealing, fire some more.
1step
(380 posts)Sting, 1988, and he wasn't talking about his rock band!
frylock
(34,825 posts)continue to show the world that you're a bunch of thin-skinned, mollycoddled shitbags.
chickenfairy
(33 posts)He's an awful mayor and plenty of us NYC dems want nothing to do with him.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)
MrScorpio
(73,630 posts)You have to try better than that
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)
Rhiannon12866
(204,818 posts)Giuliani, perhaps? 
Depaysement
(1,835 posts)He has since met with the PBA, SBA and others. Let's see if anything comes of it.
