In the Media

The de Blasio administration is telling “lies” to prevent the NYPD’s civilian watchdog from bringing discipline charges against the cop who the medical examiner said put arrestee Eric Garner in a banned fatal chokehold more than three years ago, Garner’s mother said Thursday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio says President Donald Trump’s immigration authorities engaged in a “provocative action” when they detained a prominent Trinidadian-American immigrant activist last week and appeared to defend the NYPD amid criticisms over its treatment of protestors and elected officials rallying in support of the activist.

The mayor hastily added a hearing for a controversial police reform bill to his schedule Monday — at a time when many of the activists opposed to it were mourning Erica Garner.

Mayor de Blasio added the Right to Know Act to a slew of other, less contentious, bills getting hearings Monday — slipping the bills into an updated advisory he issued two hours before the event was to begin. Meanwhile, a funeral was being held for Garner, whose father Eric Garner was killed as a police officer used a chokehold while trying to arrest him on Staten Island in 2014.

Melissa Mark-Viverito, the first Latina to preside over the 51-member New York City Council, leaves office having shepherded a progressive shift in the city’s direction, in conjunction with fellow Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio, a philosophically aligned partner in government who was the deciding factor in her winning the powerful speaker position four years ago.