In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked New York police commissioner Bill Bratton about the media’s role in the rise of public hostility toward police officers.
Earlier, Bratton had described a “pendulum swing” in public perception. “I’m informed by 45 years in this business. I have been doing this since 1970 when I first coming into the Boston Police Department and I have watched those pendulums back and forth. We are in a very interesting time at the moment where police are being vilified, sometimes justifiably based in some of the videos we see, often times not.”
Brzezinski asked “but vilified by who and how does media, if you could be blunt with us, do you think the media is helping, hurting, promulgating?”
Bratton said the media’s role is mixed. “I think in some instances that the media hurts, some instances they try to help. But I think there is a general tone about the feeling that police, that there has been excess policing in the country and that there is a desire to pull back on that.”