STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A large crowd gathered in front of the 122 Precinct’s New Dorp stationhouse Wednesday night to show their support for the police department.
Organized by artist Scott LoBaido, more than 150 people chanted and cheered while passing cars honked their horns in an effort to boost the officers’ morale following more than a month of protests against police brutality.
The demonstration was dubbed the ”Boost Blue Morale rally.”
LoBaido unveiled one of his latest pieces of artwork -- a foam board sign that read “and so do blue lives,” meant to be an add-on to the anti-racism phrase Black lives matter.
Despite the sign, LoBaido said that the rally was not meant to be directed at the “Black Lives Matter” movement, and that he believes in its central premise that the lives of Black people should be understood to matter in America. LoBaido added that the rally was only meant to show support for the police.
“I got about seven cops in my family. I got about 10 retired cops in my family. They’re all good people,” he said. “This is just about showing the love and support and respect that they need.”
LoBaido said the sign outside the precinct, which took him about a day to make, would be taken down when Wednesday night’s rally was over.
Protests have gone on across the country since the death of George Floyd on May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
That officer, Derek Chauvin, and the three who stood watch as Floyd died, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, have all been fired and charged in relation to Floyd’s death, which was reminiscent of the 2014 death of Eric Garner in Tompkinsville.
Garner’s death, and Michael Brown’s in Ferguson, Missouri sparked their own series of protests, and helped bring the Black Lives Matter movement to prominence.
The most recent protests have also sparked the most apparent steps toward police reform in the halls of government.
In New York City, the NYPD budget was reduced for Fiscal Year 2021, and multiple laws have passed at the city, state and federal level aimed at reforming departments.
LoBaido, along with elected officials who spoke at the event -- State Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-South Shore), Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/South Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Michael Reilly (R-South Shore) -- and State Assembly candidates Michael Tannousis and Anthony DeGuerre criticized the steps toward reform.
Tannousis is running for the East Shore seat that Malliotakis will vacate at the end of the year, because of her congressional run, and DeGuerre is running for the seat of Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island). Both men are Republicans.
All referenced what they perceive as a city in chaos following a 46% spike in shootings this year compared to the same time period last year.
They pointed the finger at elected Democrats who have led the efforts to reform the nation’s police departments. LoBaido brought his tongue-in-cheek portrait of Mayor Bill de Blasio that depicts a donkey standing over a hole in the ground.
Some also blamed bail reform, but a Wednesday New York Post article found reported that just 91 of the approximately 11,000 people released from Rikers Island have been involved in a shooting this year.
None of the politicians offered solutions to the concerns raised about police brutality, but LoBaido, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, said he was in favor the president’s steps toward police reform.
Reilly, a retired NYPD lieutenant, said the real danger was low-morale cops leaving the force en masse. The New York Post also reported Wednesday that in the past week the city had seen a 411% increase in the number of officers filing for retirement when compared to the same time period last year.
“Unlike a lot of my colleagues in Albany and in city government, I wore this uniform,” he said. “They’re taking away the morale and moving back that line between order and chaos.”
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