I don’t think he is culpable. However he is very clearly adversarial towards the NYPD. For someone who won by such a large margin * he is a shockingly bad politician who is trying very hard to learn on the job what it means to run a diverse city. If you think that all the animosity comes from one or two statements you are wrong. And yes, Al Sharpton is a running theme here.
*(he did get 70% of the vote but there was only something like 27% voter turn out. And it’s only been a year but I had to look up who his opponent was so there wasn’t really a strong field.)
He won on a platform that criticized the NYPD.
He uses Al Sharpton as a frequent unpaid advisor.
He called for a public conference which turned into Sharpton chastising the police on camera while Bratton sat there next to him eating shit. It made it seem like Al Sharpton had more power over what is going to happen to the NYPD than the police commissioner. That lead to photoshopped NYPD IDs with Sharpton’s picture with the rank of commissioner going around the internet. It was embarrassing to see.
The mayor’s wife who is a paid city employee had a chief of staff who was Sharpton’s former spokesperson. That chief of staff lied on her background check about the reason why she had to live in New Jersey. It was because her live in boyfriend had been convicted of manslaughter in the past and was on probation on other charges. Including eluding while said chief of staff was in the car. He also frequently has a lot of unpolitical things to say about police on social media. All the while Di Blasio defended her and her criminal boyfriend and son until the shit started to pile up too high and she had to resign. That same chief of staff attended police CompStat meetings. That is where all crime in the city is discussed and the local commanders answer for what they are doing about it. Di Blassio immediately dumped another aide just because she was dating Eliot Spitzer. There is speculation she was put in the job ($170,000 a year) as a favor to Sharpton. Sharpton remained silent on the election and did not back the only black candidate as expected.
He put on the city payroll as a community director a former campaign aide who got into hot water during the campaign for sending out tweets praising Christopher Dorner and such bon mots as Fuck The Police.
When looking to fill a supervisor vacancy on his NYPD security detail it came out that only a black officer could get the job. Which obviously goes against NYPD policy.
During recent protests the NYPD was ordered to allow protestors to shut down major thoroughfares and not enforce the law. It wasn’t until some officers were assaulted that they were allowed to attempt to arrest anyone.
Recently Di Blasio reappointed a judge who is known to be extremely soft on crime to include releasing without bail two people who were arrested for making threats against police officers after the assassination of the two officers. He also failed to reappoint a judge who is perceived as tough against crime despite the good recommendation from his own vetting team.
That is just what I remember off the top of my head. I know there were other things said and done in the last year and before. This is an ongoing rift and it isn’t one sided. If he had made that one statement about his son there would have been maybe some grumblings, some tweets, some facebook posts but not much more. The NYPD feels not only that they don’t have support at the top, they have someone who is actively working against them.