"They're Your People! Back Them Up!!"

The funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos of the NYPD was today.  Being that Saturday is my religious Sabbath, my personal attendance was out of the question, as was my monitoring of the funeral via today's modern electronic technologies.  There had been some discussions and speculations as to how the rank-and-file NYPDers would present themselves vis-a-vis New York City's alleged Mayor, Bill de Blasio.  A week before, they had already turned their backs their backs to the alleged Mayor as he came to the hospital where Officers Ramos and Liu were taken following their brutal murder.

I gave the odds as 60:40 that the NYPD rank and file would once again turn away from Blaz, leaving open the possibility that PBA President Pat Lynch may have decided on a strategy to take the high road, leaving Blaz to worry about when the other shoe would drop.  But just before I shut down my computer for the Sabbath, I came across the news item that some persons unknown, presumably current or former NYPDers, had chartered a plane to fly over the Hudson River, dragging the banner message "De Blasio, Our Backs Have Turned To You."

I knew then and there that there was no 60:40 or 50:50, but that there was a 100% probability that there would be thousands of NYPDers and other law enforcement officers at Officer Ramos's funeral, and that they would be turning their backs to de Blasio.  And so it came to pass.

Two years out of college, I was working as an Administrator for a certain electronics firm that was a subsidiary of, and housed in the same building as, the parent company, a larger electronics firm.  Our division President, who was my boss's boss, was a vice-president of the parent company.

I was once at a meeting where the topic of discussion was a certain project in Oklahoma and in Ohio that required the interface of our division with another division of the parent company, offices located upstairs and down the hall from our own.  My division President was at the meeting, and I was covering the meeting for my own boss, who was out of town at the time.  Our Division President confronted the Other Division President (also a VP of the parent company) with a document produced by two of the ODP's underlings, with whom I had been interfacing.  The document was clearly based upon invalid data, and had faulty rationale.

The ODP said to my DP, "Oh, that's just the work of "Laurel" and "Hardy," but we don't have to go with their numbers or schedules.  They're shitheads anyway!"

So my DP said to the ODP, "George, they may be shitheads, but they work for you!   They're your people, so you have to back them up or flush them out!

"And by the way, George," my DP continued, "I don't have any shitheads working for me.  But even if I did, I certainly wouldn't tell anybody about it!"

[I, of course, ended up having to refigure the numbers and the schedule, but once I did that, there was no pushback from "Laurel" and "Hardy," nor, I was informed, from George.  In the next two months I traveled to Oklahoma and to Ohio to get the project going.].

The one (and perhaps the only) common denominator of all the effective supervisors to whom I have ever reported is that they either stood up for their own people, or, if they could not stand up for them, they got rid of them.  All "visits to the woodshed" were done privately.

And the few supervisors I have had who were ineffectual (including my aforementioned boss who was out of town that day) all, without exception, failed to give their own people the proper backing, and failed to keep their admonitory chastisements behind closed doors.

And when I held a supervisory position with Uncle Sam, I backed up my people as best as I could (for a while I was severely hampered by another ineffectual boss who failed to give me the backing I needed, and who allowed his soul sister to bypass me with her issues and go directly to him, but his subsequent criminal indictment gave me much vindication a few years later).

With that background, I direct your attention, dear reader, to the New York City Charter:

Chapter 1, Section 8(a):

"The mayor shall be responsible for the effectiveness and integrity of city government operations and shall establish and maintain such policies and procedures as are necessary and appropriate to accomplish this responsibility including the implementation of effective systems of internal control by each agency and unit under the jurisdiction of the mayor."

Chapter 18 of the City Charter places the New York City Police Department under the jurisdiction of the Mayor, and spells out the duties and mission of the NYPD.

Bill de Blasio's problem:  He. Doesn't. Back. His. Own. People.  And in return, they are showing him their own backs.

Look for the situation to further deteriorate.  Blaz is too firmly welded to Sharpton to be able to shake him off. I only hope that the NYPD rank and file appreciate the New Yorkers and visitors to the city who empathize with them.