Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Visits 25th Precinct with NYPD Commissioner Bratton

February 27, 2014

Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4q1j8rrdvM&feature=share

CONTACT: pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov, (212) 788-2958

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I want to thank again Commissioner Bratton for the chance to be here at the 2-5 here today. It was an honor to be a part of the roll call and see the brave men and women who go out and protect us every day. I want to thank the commanding officer, Captain Thomas Harnisch, again, for your great leadership, and for the success you’ve achieved. And all the men and women of your command. I want to thank Assembly Member Robert Rodriguez for being here, represents this community. And he’s been a friend for a long time. Thank you for joining us today.

We came here today to the 2-5 precinct to show our appreciation for the men and women of the NYPD. We came here to let them know how much we understand, how hard their work is, how much we appreciate the difficulty and the challenges. And yet we see the extraordinary success that they’ve achieved. And we understand that that means that their work is truly exceptional. Under very difficult circumstances, achieving constantly strong results. And the fact is, there was a day of reflection too, being here in this precinct after the attack yesterday on one of our officers in Crown Heights. It was of course sobering to remember that every man and woman we saw today was going out into harm’s way and you never know what they might confront.

That being said, I think we’re all inspired by what we saw Officer Li do yesterday, and what we saw Officer Chow do yesterday. I think for a lot of these officers, it’s a moment to recognize just how extraordinary the collegiality of the NYPD is, the professionalism of the NYPD is. And I think everyone is heartened that Officer Li and Officer Chow came back safely. Officer Li is going to be after some medical attention – will be in good shape. And that their training served them well. And that the people of the community came to their aid, both at the time of the shooting of Officer Li, and later in finding the perpetrator. And the NYPD, in this instance, I’m – I have to tell you, and I met so many of the people involved last night. You know, look at every step that was necessary to find the perpetrator, apprehend the perpetrator before he could get any more shots off. Everything was done in an extraordinarily effective manner. We look at this example, we think about the men and women of the NYPD. We think about their families and we owe to them a strong commitment to make sure we’re supporting them in every way possible.

And that is why Commissioner Bratton and I are committed to making sure that everything that we can do to support their work and to ensure their safety, we’re doing. I mentioned earlier, the technology, the training, all of the pieces that come into the equation. And the training piece is so important. And we saw it play out yesterday. Good training means so much. And we want to keep improving that training. We want to keep building on it. We want to now make sure that the training we provide at our police academy goes yet another step and helps deepen the relationship between police officers and the community they serve. I’ve said this for a long time. This is about keeping our city safe. This is about respecting the law. This is about deepening the partnership between police and community. It’s also about keeping police officers safe. That partnership, as we saw yesterday, greatly enhances the safety and security of everyone involved. It’s crucial that community members were there right with the police yesterday to make sure that that perpetrator was apprehended. We want that to become a standard citywide, that deep partnership, that automatic partnership between police and community. And we can achieve that, particularly by enhancing our training to create a proactive sense of partnership, to create a respectful environment from day one.

I think that has been indicative of so much of the work that Commissioner Bratton has done. You know, if you look at the Commissioner’s history – and don’t blush while I say this, commissioner. It’s – the reason I chose Commissioner Bratton was his history was so exemplary, so consistent. Keeping each jurisdiction safe that he served but constantly working to improve the relationship between police and community. Constantly working to improve the training of the men and women he led. Constantly working to improve the sense of partnership and collaboration. You’re known for doing that from one law enforcement agency to another but you’re also known for doing that between police and the communities they serve. And that is the view point we bring to our efforts. We knew to make these changes to make that progress we had to overcome a difficult past. We had to change the approach of the stop and frisk. We had to make sure that some of the rift that had been caused was healed. We had to foster new and deeper trust between police and community. And we realized that in fact the absence of that partnership and that trust was making everyone’s life harder, was making everyone’s job harder, was making the job of the men and women of precincts like this harder. It is our job to have their back as starting to rebuild the trust between police and community.

I mentioned in my comments in the roll call any system de facto or otherwise that created a sense of quota or sense of obligation to stop people whether there is a reason or not, surely undermined the good work of the professionals of the NYPD and surely undermined the relationship between the community and NYPD. And the allegation as always and the supposition always was that if you stop those practices crime would immediately and necessarily go up. We always said no. Crime would not go up in fact, when we deepen the relationship between the police and community, we would be able to fight crime more effectively and we see evidence of that already. So here is what we’re committed to. We’re committed to an approach to policing that’s tough, that’s fair and always respects the law. Commissioner Bratton is here because he has been so effective and because he believes deeply in that philosophy. As he said frequently, we won’t break the law to enforce the law. In fact the kind of policing we will have will be respectful compassionate, and always constitutional. We’re going to comply with the court order in the Floyd case. We’re going to move forward to dial back the tensions that have existed between police and community in too many parts of the city. And those tensions have restricted the flow of information our officers needed.

I keep coming back to this because the more time I spent over many years, with leaders of the NYPD  and with beat cops, kept coming back to information, kept coming back knowing where the bad guys were, knowing where the weapons were, having that free flow information. You saw in the incident yesterday what it meant to have community members immediately provide information to the police. You  saw in a different vein today with Dale Green what it meant to have a community leader ready to step forward immediately to protect his fellow citizens about at the same time immediately calling the police with an accurate description that allowed the quick arrest of the suspect. That partnership is invaluable. That partnership is irreplaceable and that is what we aim to create in each and every neighborhood of this city.

And I have to tell you I have such faith in this commissioner and in this police force. I know they will keep us safe and I know they will foster that partnership and it will start with creating a new approach how we train our new recruits. The men and women who will be both the beat cops of tomorrow and the leaders of the police force of tomorrow. That begins of course in the police academy and there will be a changes made in the curriculum in that academy. And we’re going to be stressing from now on what is called seven steps to positive community interactions. Now the seven steps are things that a lot of officers already know instinctively and practice every day, but we want to make it the norm. We want everyone to know this is the right approach. And I’m just going to go over them very quickly with you. Step one is whenever possible – whenever it makes sense – the officer politely introduces himself and provides name and rank. Step two is to actively listen and attentively listen to the people they’re encountering. Step three is to keep an open mind about the information they’re receiving. Step four is to be patient with the people they are serving. Again, we’re talking about every kind of circumstance. And we know there’s a difference between an urgent and an emergency circumstance and an everyday encounter. We believe it’s so important for our officers to have the opportunity to hear deeply what people are telling them, including if they happen to come from a different background, a different culture, have a different first language. Step four – excuse me, step five is to know the resources the NYPD  – and other agencies – that would be available to help people with their problems. Step six is to make every reasonable effort to address the needs of the people that have asked for help. And step seven is to make sure every encounter, whenever possible, ends on a positive note so people know that they have been served with that respect.

These are kinds of things that will continue to deepen our efforts to keep the city safe and to build that deep partnership between police and community. And I’m convinced that this is what’s going to allow us to do our work so much better and to keep protecting, not only the citizens of this city, but making sure at the same time that our men and women of the NYPD are safe. With that, I’d like to take questions on this topic and any police-related topics, and then we’ll take some off-topic questions. So first, police-related questions.  Yes?

Question: Yesterday I – this might be for the commissioner. The alleged shooter was apparently out on a warrant and had a warrant out for his arrest for more than a year. I wonder if it troubles you that someone like that was able to be on the streets for so long to –

Commissioner Bill Bratton, NYPD: In terms of – unfortunately we have a lot of people that are wanted on warrants. We have very aggressive warrant enforcement in the city. One of the problems serving a warrant on this individual, he described himself as homeless. And he does not have a place of residence, so. Other than encounters with the police, which he had yesterday, where for the fare evasion they would have questioned him and sought to verify his identity, at which time they may have ascertained there was an outstanding warrant for him.  They may have been able to effect the service of that warrant. But it’s – a number of the people that we seek to get on warrants, they move around quite a lot. In this gentlemen’s case, he did not have a permanent domicile.

Mayor: Grace?

Question: Mayor, I was hoping you could talk to your own evolving relationship with the Police Department. As a candidate for mayor, you were one of the loudest critics of many of the department’s policies. And as mayor, you seem to be placing much more trust in the department. I’m thinking of the issue of the phone call about Bishop Findlayter, and you said that we trust our precinct commanders, you said that you trusted the security security protocols of the detail that protects you. How has your own sort of view of the police department changed since becoming mayor? And do you still view yourself as a watchdog so to speak?

Mayor: Well I appreciate the question. I think though the question has certain premises in it that I’d like to just rework, because I don’t think I would have said it that way. So let me put it in my own words. First of all, I have immense trust for the men and women of the NYPD. For the extraordinary tradition of professionalism in this organization. And I particularly have a special personal trust for this police commissioner. But my history with the NYPD goes back almost a quarter century. I started working closely with the NYPD in 1990 when I started working in City Hall as a staff member. I worked closely with members of the Intelligence Division and with a lot of cops out in communities. And then as a city council member, got to know very closely a lot of the police leaders in the precincts that I covered in my district, and obviously a lot of the beat cops, a lot of the community affairs cops. So when I was a council member, I had the 6-6, the 7-2, the 7-6 and the 7-8 precincts in my district. And I ended up constantly communicating with those precinct commanders. One of the things that used to be a little bittersweet for me was when the commanders had to leave. Because of course, there is a rotation protocol. And I had – in many cases had grown very close to the commanders because we did so much work together. And I thought a number of them were extraordinary leaders. And I knew they had to go at a certain point because of the protocol, and I always knew that there would be someone else to get to know. And in many cases, I was really pleased to find that the next person was just as good.

So I think anyone like me who’s spent a lot of time working with this department in all its different permutations, it’s impossible not to respect the men  and women who do this work. That is different from what I felt about the policies of the previous administration. And I certainly separate the men and women that do the work and the traditions of this department from the policies of a specific administration. I thought the policies of the Bloomberg administration were wrong in several key instances. I certainly thought they were wrong when it came to Stop and Frisk. And I thought the impact of what was obviously a de facto quota system was to – can we get this gentleman some water? Some – Rachel? Can we get some water for this gentleman, please? It was a de facto quota system that was clear to me that – and I heard this, by the way, from a number of everyday cops. Because they were reticent at first and careful, but if I asked them to, off record, state their views, a number of them shared with me that they felt that the quota system made it more difficult for them to do their jobs. That they couldn’t go after more serious crime if they were busy just looking for any stop they could make. And that they did not like what it did to their relationship with the community. So from my point of view, my faith in the NYPD goes back a long way. But I thought the policies of the previous administration really undermined the work of the NYPD, and that’s what we intend to rectify. Marcia?

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wonder if both you and the police commissioner could tell me in your words how these new protocols will help restore the trust of the community and police officers?

Mayor: Well I’ll start. Commissioner Bratton’s the true expert. I’ll give you my layman’s view. I’ve talked to a lot of people who were stopped for no apparent reason. I’ve talked to a lot of people who did not get the kind of respectful treatment they would like. I’ve talked to a number of people who had family members who were in law enforcement, and yet were treated disrespectfully by the particular officer they came across. And when you hear those stories over and over again, you know that we’re not helping to build that partnership if we have a policy that drives a wedge between police and community. So that’s what that de facto quota did, that’s what the incessant focus on the number of stops did. And the unwillingness to respond to valid community concerns really deepened, unfortunately, a rift that we didn’t need to have to begin with. And so, from my point of view, what I hear constantly, thinking over these last, you know, four or five years. What I heard constantly was people who wanted that close relationship with the police and wanted that mutual respect and were yearning for it in fact, and often found that they couldn’t achieve it. And I think the people have gotten a very different message since Commissioner Bratton took over. And certainly when I talk to people around the city, when I talk to community leaders, when I talk to clergy leaders, there’s a very different tone, there’s a very different set of assumptions now. And I think people know that every effort’s being made to create that respectful partnership on the ground. And certainly yesterday was ­– yesterday was one isolated incident. But I think it’s exemplary of what we hope will be the norm. We want every member of every community to know, when a police officer is in trouble go to their aid. When there is a perpetrator on the loose, help the police immediately. We want to see more people like Dale Green come forward and call in that description. That’s what we need to see a lot more of.

Commissioner Bratton: I’m very comfortable that where we already have respect in the community. And I think in the majority of the community of the city of New York, we have that and we will improve on it. And in those communities that clearly have indicated that they have those concerns – and those are particularly communities of color that have been most impacted by the past practices and policies of the Department as it relates to stop, question, and frisk. I think that as that activity diminishes, and diminishes appropriately – while at the same time crime continues to decline – I think there will be additional opportunities to regain respect where we’ve lost it and gain it where we may never have had it in the first place. So I’m very confident of that. And my confidence is built upon the most recent experience in Los Angeles, that had many of the same circumstances that we have here in New York. So –

Question: Two part question: Are these protocols being given out to officers in the precincts [inaudible] is there some way that they’re getting communicated to them? And also [inaudible] talk maybe a year or so ago in the council about police officers giving out their business cards so that when they make an arrest, is that the way you’ll like to see?

Mayor: [inaudible] personally – I will welcome the commissioner’s comments. My view is it should be a matter of training. And again, this is – we all know there are certain situations where it’s not the occasion to introduce yourself, where it’s live action and officers have to respond, as yesterday, as their training teaches them. But in many, many interactions that are more pedestrian, where there’s that opportunity to start with a respectful introduction, I think it’s a very helpful thing. But I think that’s a verbal matter and it’s a matter of training.

Commissioner Bratton: The seven points that the mayor articulated are some that [inaudible] one of the tools – maybe one of the foundations, if you will – of the changes we’ll be seeking to make, both in the academy training in service as well as recruit. Tomorrow we’re going to have the pleasure, among other promotions, swearing in the new deputy commissioner for the academy, Benjamin Tucker. And I’m very optimistic, as is the mayor, about his interests and abilities to begin that process. So in terms of the general distribution and the general training around those seven points, no that has not been broadly done at this point in time. That’s the changes that we’re going to look for from the new deputy commissioner in the weeks and months ahead.

Question: [inaudible] Commissioner Bratton, can you tell us about this bias attack on the subway over the weekend. [Inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: I’m not even familiar with the issue you’re talking about, sorry. I don’t know.

Question: Commissioner, can we ask you just to expand a little more on the seven points for just a second? Are you going to be like – are these seven things that you say, ‘Here are these seven things all the officers on the street, go out and do these things [inaudible] For example, you know number four, be patient. Is that something that there’s going to be discussion with the officers of how to [inaudible] what do you mean be patient. What if the person does x, y, z?

Commissioner Bratton: As I indicated, this is a tool or a – one of the platforms, if you will, that we’re going to be building on. Last time I was here in ’94, we brought it to the department, a concept that was newly emerging at that time called verbal judo. The idea – verbal judo. Teaching officers how to communicate in a way that they didn’t alienate the people that they were dealing with because of their language, because of their attitude. Cops in this city, indeed, around the country, get in more trouble with their mouths than they do with any of the tools we give them – clubs, guns. We injure very few people in this city in the course of making arrests and interacting with them. But we do tend to injure an awful lot of people through our language. And so the idea is to begin to formulate new language for all of our officers that might help to diffuse the situation, rather than escalate it. And I’ve seen time and again throughout my career where cops jam themselves up and lose a lot of respect. And in fact, make matters worse by their use of language, choice of words. So this is part of a concept to just begin a different dialogue, if you will.

Question: And how’d you come up with these seven [inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: The background of these seven – I’ll be quite frank with you, I’m not sure what the terms of the origin of this. I’m more familiar with the verbal judo concept, and some of the ones we used in L.A. But the academy has already been experimenting with this in several of the precincts with good results. And it’s felt that it – as the mayor articulated, they’re all common sense. That – you know, be polite. Use appropriate terms, de-escalate, try to end a situation. So many of the stop, question and frisk incidents we have can, in fact, be used in a positive way. That the idea being, ‘This is why I stopped you and I’m having this problem in the neighborhood, where you aware of this?’ That, you know, in terms of, ‘Now that you are aware, we’d very much appreciate your help in dealing with it.’ There’s just so many ways that you can turn a negative into a positive.

Mayor: I want to just add to that. Because – I want to make sure people are hearing fully what we’re saying here. Again, we understand there’s going to be situations where it’s split-second decisions, very tough things that people are dealing with who are men and women of our force, like yesterday. So, what we’re talking about here is a lot of the more everyday interactions, not the ones that might require that kind of split-second aggressive response. But most of what police do – and I have one of the great experts on the earth standing next to me – most of what police do every day is more normal interactions with people. And we want those to be as constructive as possible because we’re trying to build towards something. We’re trying to build towards a thorough, consistent partnership between police and community in every single neighborhood of this city.  And we need to lay down a foundation of that kind of dialogue and respect. Now on the side of some of the police cars over the years said “Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect”. Concepts not new were the verbal judo; these ideas have been around for decades. But let’s face it, in the Stop and Frisk era I will say it as I think it is, a de facto quota. I think of people will agree with me and I think the Patrolmen Benevolent Association will agree with me there was de facto quota for stops. In that atmosphere where so many officers were being pushed to make stops for hard to figure reasons. 90 percent of those stops were found innocent in every way, shape, or form. Those interactions were not very positive. A lot of times folks stopped had no idea why they were being stopped. A lot of times there wasn’t a lot of explanation or respectful dialogue and it dug in a sense of divide in many communities. We have to come back from that. We got to heal that, we got to get back to the day where every single person, including our young people, including our young people of color, walk down the street and see a police officer and know that police officer is on their side and thank God they’re there. That is the atmosphere I want to create in this city. And that will take work from all quarters. I want every single New Yorker to be respectful and the police in return. And understand that we rely on them so deeply and they put their lives on the line. I think the notion here, as the commissioner said, is to start on a road towards a different kind of communication. Someone walks up to you and explains who they are and what they are doing is a very different discussion and none of that happens. I think we have heard already some very powerful examples where someone was stopped because they did fit the description. It was a crime that just happened, they were stopped because they fit the description. Once they are heard they are were stopped because they fit the description for a robbery or an attempted assault or whatever it might be, the person who was stopped understood the police officer was doing their job and doing it well and it brought a calm to the situation. Cause there was a reason, there was an understanding to it. We want to create that dynamic across the board. And then what you’ll see is what you see – you’ll see more of what you saw yesterday. I want a city where if something goes wrong, citizens are going out of their way to tell the police exactly what happened. To tell them where the perpetrator is, where the weapon is, and being as quick as they can to join the police in partnership. And that’s what we have to build here.

[inaudible]

Mayor: Yes?

Question:  Regarding the warrant [inaudible] with a  warrant for Rashun Robinson issued at some point thereafter [inaudible] New York authorities, presumed to be NYPD, were given several addresses for Rashun Robinson [inaudible] indicated he might be homeless –

Commissioner Bratton: Were these addresses in Pennsylvania?

Question: His New York addresses.

Commissioner Bratton: I have no knowledge of that, sorry.

Question: And also, regarding Operation Impact, you spoke about the – retooling it, beginning with the class that starts in July. I know it’s still relatively early, but do you envision a scenario where as a teacher, you have two rookies that [inaudible] or do you anticipate pairing a rookie with a more senior officer [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The actual formulation of changes, that’s going to be one of the responsibilities of Commissioner Tucker. My dialogue, my discussion with him is the idea to try and create a format in which their first several months out in the field, that as much as possible we try to team them up with more seasoned officers. And then after they’ve had that experience, there may be the potential that they in fact then would go into a traditional Operation Impact type post. And at that time, possibly with a rookie partner, maybe, I don’t know. It really depends on our capabilities, if you will, to team them up with more seasoned officers. But to as great a degree as possible, the idea is to put them together with more seasoned personnel for the first few months on the job. In reference to yesterday’s event, these are two kids that had worked together with each other since they came out of the academy in December. And as we saw – fortunately, the training they received in the academy was of such a caliber that they were able to deal with that life-threatening situation in an extraordinarily great fashion, an exemplary fashion. The radio discipline of the officer [inaudible] after his partner was shot was exceptional, and really helped to get responding units both to his partner, as well as to himself to aid him. So while the preference would be that two rookies don’t work together without direct supervision, as we saw yesterday, that does not belie the fact that they receive extraordinarily good training in the academy.

Question: And regarding the officer, can you update us on his condition and when [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I should be giving him a call a little later today. He’s still hospitalized, may be in for several more days. But at least the preliminary information the mayor and I received yesterday, the wounds were certainly not life-threatening, nor were they thought to be of a nature that would be so debilitating that he would not be able to return to work.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: We seek to get people who already committed crime to basically have them come in and effectively deal with the crimes they’ve already committed. So going back to my days in 1994, we basically count on very aggressive warrant enforcement. At the same time, we have a very large number of people who are wanted on warrants. And the issue of that population often times are very mobile. They move around. And it’s a lot of –

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I’m sorry, warrant enforcement?

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: No, warrant enforcement – warrant enforcement remains a priority. Maybe the numbers have gone down, but warrant enforcement is always a priority. As you’re going after a known criminal  – in many instances, because we do seek to prioritize going after the more serious offenders when we can.  And that somebody you know has already been charged, arrested and is now out in the street, possibly be committing crime. So the ideal of warrant enforcement, even though the actual numbers may have gone down, still remains a priority.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The incident yesterday would have probably led to that. Even something as simple as a fare evasion, stop –

Mayor: Fare evasion.

Commissioner Bratton: Fare evasion. The initiating action yesterday was the individual got on the bus without paying the fare. And the MTA has asked us to pay particular attention to their buses. They’ve been having a number of assaults on their bus passengers and operators, so we have been paying more attention to the buses and the bus routes. So the irony, if you will, of yesterday’s action – of officers engaging in a $2.50 theft of service. Some people may say, why are you worrying about that? Well, the New York turnaround began in 1990 when in the subway system when I was chief of police, we began to focus on fare evasion. And what did we find? One out of every seven people who were wanted on a warrant. One out of every 21 were carrying weapons from box cutters up to Uzi submachine guns. So the New York miracle, if you will, began with fare evasion – fare evasion enforcement on the subway 25 years ago. So the irony yesterday, 25 years later, we’re still at it. And what happened yesterday? Twenty-five years later, the guy evading the fare was armed with a 45-caliber weapon. So just reinforces the idea, you pay attention to the little things and you might find bigger things from occurring.

Mayor: Let me – wait. Sir – sir, hold on. You’ve had – I said we’ve got to be careful on the three and four part questions my friends. So I want to – I want to speak to this. This is a very, very important point. Yesterday the officers saw the fare evaders. They confronted them. As the commissioner said, a guy with a .45 taken off the streets. This is the crucial point. If they had not been as vigorous, the guy would have evaded his fare, gone along with his business with his weapon with him. Now he is in custody. So, I just want to say, long before I had the privilege of meeting Bill Bratton, I was a believer in the Broken Windows theory. And I think it has been proven time and time again. I think it – by the way – is proven out in human life, not just in terms of public safety, but in so many other things. If you let situations fester, they become worse. So we, in fact, because of the beliefs we hold here in this administration, we want to see that aggressive enforcement. And we want to go after people who are actually doing something wrong, not people who are innocent citizens. I think that’s the point on the warrant enforcement as well. In fact when we’re not doing stops based on a quota that yield almost 90 percent innocent people, but we’re training our attention and our energies at hardened criminals. And we’re going after signs of criminal activity that in fact can reveal much more. That’s exactly what we should be doing. So I want to just say, I applaud this turn of direction, because I think it’s getting us at the bad guys and at the weapons and at the problem so much more consistently. And yesterday is an example of that. Let’s go to – other topics? Other topics.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Well we’ve said, as part of the settlement of the Floyd case, that we’re going to accept the judge’s specific package of reforms. So that will be piloted. But it’s something we would have to work through the details of.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: No. No, some you have seen in various court activities, but nothing on our side. But again, there’s going to be a pilot effort. It’s going to take some work to put together. But we believe on a pilot basis it makes sense.

Question: I think this is a question for the Police Commissioner: Have you decided whether you’re going to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade?

Bratton: I will be marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, that’s correct

Question: [inaudible question about Gracie Mansion]

Mayor: Yeah, that was not accurate. With all due respect to him. And that was not part of the interview we had. I was talking about a range of possibilities that we were still working through. What we found here – and I’ll speak on behalf of the First Lady here as well. You know, we immediately went from election to transition, from transition to government. Government came with snow storms and lots of other things that we had to put a lot of energy into on top of the regular work that we do. So, we would love to be able to focus on packing up our things, but we just haven't had time to do it. At some point we will. We don't have a date certain yet. But as soon as we get a chance to focus on that, but we at this moment have some more important things to focus on.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Sure, well, obviously the leadership on this came from the Department of Education and Chancellor Fariña, but I agree wholeheartedly with her decision. We were handed a series of last minute moves by the Bloomberg Administration, approving a number of co-locations, in a way that I think was ill-advised. But, you know, we're all mature around here, we knew that if they could get away with it, they would. But we said last year, we would fully review those decisions, and if we thought some of them were either inappropriate, counter-productive, that they would harm the educational possibilities for the kids in the schools they were going into. If we thought there was something that literally violated our philosophy of what a good education is, we would act. And there are certain cases where we've said, we simply can't go forward with those co-locations. Now, I would note, I believe in the case of her organization, some of her schools were approved and others were not. But we were very clear that in certain situations we thought we would counterproductive to our children's education, we weren't going to stand for that.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: This has nothing to do with the pre-k situation in and of itself. This decision was based on review of the decisions made by the previous administration, again, a rush by the previous administration. Look, I'm not going to mince words about what I feel about how the Bloomberg Administration made decisions on co-locations. I think it was abhorrent. I think it was done without real consultation with parents, real consultation with the schools that were going to be affected, the receiving schools. And I think a lot of those co-locations proved to be very problematic in practice. It was a rush – I'm coming to you, hold on – it was a rush by the Bloomberg Administration to get things in under the bell, under the wire, and we said from the beginning we were going to give a hard look to them, and when we gave that hard look we found some that we simply could not abide by, and we took action. Yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Well, again, I'm going to call everyone out in this wonderful press corps, you're a very talented group. You're a lively group. But I'm going to call you out any time you offer a premise that does not reflect what I've said in the past, that's not what I've said in the past. You're combining the rent question with other questions. The question of these specific co-location choices, we feel that there was a rush to get a lot done before the end of the previous administration, that the process was not a good process, and that we will implement, as I've said, a moratorium going forward. We looked at each and every one. We made decisions based on what we thought those specific proposals would do to the kids involved, both in the newly proposed schools and in the receiving schools. In the case of Ms. Moskowitz's organization, my best understanding is some of her schools were approved and some were not. But on the question of what charters can afford – that gets us over to a very different issue which is the rent issue. Wherein, I have said, that charter organizations that have substantial resources should do, in this city, what is done in many states: pay us something in rent. Charters without substantial resources should not have to, and that's a policy we'll put forward. But this co-location policy has nothing to do with the rent policy per se.

Question: [inaudible]?

Mayor: Particular concern for the receiving school in this equation. And again, as we have these gatherings, I'm going to talk about things that are common sense. I think that the school receiving in any of these situations has some special rights and special considerations because there is a history and an operating reality that is going to be changed by bringing a new school into it. And we have to make sure that the formula does not result in the receiving school constantly being on the short end of the stick which has often been the case in the previous administration. So I think the bottom line is this: there was a rush to make these decisions by the previous administration. We were put in a situation where we have to rush to deal with the ramifications. We did a thorough analysis as quickly as we could in the first weeks of being here. We decided that some of these were not fair, did not make sense, and we took action. Anything going forward, we are going to create a consultative process with the various stakeholders. Starting with the parents involved That’s why for us when we get to this on our own terms it is going to include that consulted process.

Question: [inaudible].

Mayor:  [inaudible].

Question: [inaudible].

Mayor:  We have not evaluated the new lawsuit. I think there is more than one legal action either out there or being considered but we have not evaluated them. So we have no particular plan this moment. On the original campaign {inaudible]last decade just want to remind everyone the [inaudible] won that lawsuit, won at the court appeals, the highest court in New York State. There were two state budgets that reflected that legal victory. And then it suddenly stopped. The ostensible reason was the economic prices reduced revenues etc.  Our reasoning is very clear I said this in Albany when I went up to the budget hearing a few weeks back. If there was a legal victory that stated the children New York City deserved more support from the State, that they have not been given fair and equitable support of the state. And that was effectively put aside because of economic reality and now we come out of that economic reality so the state government has finally surpluses again. Well the state of New York owes something to the children of New York City and it’s time to act on that.

Question: [inaudible].

Mayor: I would say it more simply, I would say first the previous decisions still hold as far as we’re concerned and we’re working from that assumption. We’ll evaluate any new option, but we believe there is actually an operative court decision by the highest court in the state right this minute saying the state of New York owes the state of New York  something and we’re going to act on that assumption. Thank you everyone.