Ex-NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio Intentionally Held Cops Back During Black Lives Matter Protests, Former Andrew Cuomo Aide Claims
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio deliberately held police officers back during Black Lives Matter protests.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio deliberately held police officers back during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a surprising development to come nearly two years after de Blasio left office in January 2022, a top aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo claimed that the then-mayor intentionally held officers back during a George Floyd protest because he did not want to be “embarrassed” by a potential clash between the NYPD and BLM protestors.
Ex-Andrew Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa made the shocking claim in her new memoir.
That is the shocking claim made by Melissa DeRosa in her upcoming memoir, What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis.
According to DeRosa, de Blasio and Cuomo disagreed on how to handle the erupting protests across NYC after Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020.
“We learned that a high-ranking member of the police union had reached out directly to the governor that morning with disturbing information: he believed that de Blasio, fearful of more police clashes with protesters going viral on video, was purposefully not deploying additional bodies,” DeRosa wrote in her upcoming tome.
She continued, “As a result, knowing they were outnumbered, officers were unwilling to take on the looters.”
De Blasio and Cuomo disagreed on how to handle the erupting protests across NYC after Floyd was killed in Minnesota in May 2020.
Governor Cuomo’s eyes reportedly “widened in disbelief” when he learned that Mayor de Blasio and then-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea only deployed 4,000 NYPD officers to oversee more than 5,000 BLM protestors.
“The governor’s eyes widened in disbelief at what, to him, amounted to a staggering admission of malpractice,” Cuomo’s chief of staff wrote.
“Shea had just confirmed what the governor had been told and feared; the city had deliberately minimized deployment.”
According to DeRosa, de Blasio deliberately held officers back because he was “influenced by the far left” and the “defund the police” movement that grew popular in the weeks following Floyd’s May 2020 death.
De Blasio left office in January 2022 after his term ended.
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“It was ill-advised and stupid, but that didn’t stop extreme-left elected officials from taking up the mantra,” she wrote. “The mayor took it a step further, attempting to lead the charge by announcing he would cut $1 billion from the NYPD operating budget and another $500 million from its capital budget.”
The BLM protests grew in number in June 2020 after the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office deemed Floyd’s death a homicide, and then-President Donald Trump threatened to send soldiers into New York to stop the looting taking place across the city.
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DeRosa claimed that additional NYPD officers were only deployed after de Blasio realized that “the chaos was doing more damage to him than offending the Far Left would.”
“That night, the streets were flooded with NYPD,” she wrote. “Arrests and looting dropped dramatically.”
There were reportedly only 4,000 NYPD officers to oversee more than 5,000 Black Lives Matter protestors.
“That mattered far more than any bruised egos or negative press about the `feud’ between the governor and the mayor.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio’s former advisor – Peter Ragone – responded to DeRosa’s surprising claims on Sunday. Ragone blamed the “chaos” in NYC after Floyd’s murder on “the Cuomo folks” for “putting politics over the interest of New Yorkers.”
“The NYPD had all the resources it needed to handle difficult situations despite having no support from the state,” Ragone said.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Mayor de Blasio ultimately left office when his term ended on January 1, 2022. Governor Cuomo was forced to resign in disgrace in August 2021 following several sexual assault allegations.
Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in April 2021 in connection to Floyd’s death one year earlier. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.
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