New York mayor Bill de Blasio has linked the St. Patrick's Day Parade to the violence that took place during the West Indian J’Ouvert festival, during which two people were shot dead.
J’Ouvert takes place in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, throughout the night before the West Indian Day Parade, held every Labor Day.
“I’m outraged… this is a libel against the Irish community in this town,” lawyer Brian O’Dwyer, Chairman of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, said.
“There were some hooligans we took care of, but there was never year-after-year of people being killed, shot and stabbed,” O’Dwyer added.
The mayor also compared the festival’s violence to the Puerto Rican Day parade, angering the city’s Puerto Rican community.
“This is disrespectful — this is shameful for him to say that. The Puerto Rican Day Parade has never got a death, killing, bloodshed,” State Senator Ruben Diaz said.
De Blasio claimed that “For decades, permits were given to the Puerto Rican Parade, to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade… there was violence and people bluntly expected it.”
Even his own Police Chief Bill Bratton disagreed with his boss, saying St.Patrick’s and other parades dealt only with “quality of life issues.”
“J’Ouvert is singular in the significant violence associated with it,”Bratton said.
That is true and de Blasio knows it. I don't know what weed de Blasio was smoking.
WSJ: RT WSJNY: De Blasio, gay and lesbian Irish group march for first time in St. Patrick’s Day Parade … pic.twitter.com/vO6lZsdVGX
— Investing Insight (@InvestingLatest) March 17, 2016
Someone forget to tell him that the last shooting or serious violence connected to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade was an IRA hit in 1923 on the informer “Cruxy” O’Connor by Pa Murray of the Cork IRA after “Cruxy” was identified and followed at the parade.
Read More: Ten ways Mayor de Blasio has angered New York's Irish community
Since then there have been issues with the parade, God knows, but never gun violence. The worst was beer showers and boos for Mayor David Dinkins when he marched with a gay group in 1991.
Why does de Blasio choose to lump in the Irish parade with the murderous events at the J’Ouvert carnival, where two people were shot dead, one a young girl who objected to being fondled by a pervert?
Gangs use J’Ouvert as a time to settle scores, marring the celebration. As in other years, deadly violence broke out.
At 3:45 am on Monday, at Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights, Tyreke Borel, 17, was shot in the chest. He later died at Kings County Hospital, sources said.
At 4:15 a.m., Tiarah Poyau, 22, was fatally shot in the eye at Washington Avenue and Empire Boulevard, police said.
Poyau’s LinkedIn page showed that she was an international tax intern at PricewaterhouseCoopers and an aspiring accountant. She listed St. John’s University as her undergraduate and graduate school.
These are terrible tragedies and the clear and obvious thing to do is cancel J'Ouvert until the community and police can get their act together. Two deaths in a year when the police presence was higher than ever before is more than enough to warrant this. No one attending is safe, as these two killings make clear.
Instead, de Blasio announces the parade can go on. “I think it was very clear yesterday that we were not including the option of ending something which has gone on for decades and decades,” de Blasio said at a news conference with police officials. “We have to find out a way to make it safer."
Standing w/ Mayor DeBlasio & First Lady Chirlane while waiting to speak at the West Indian American Parade breakfast pic.twitter.com/gOC9NxAvZZ
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) September 5, 2016
De Blasio’s PC mentality blazer is getting worse the longer he is in office, and he now cannot distinguish fact from political correctness.
There’s a huge difference between ensuring people are not publicly drunk (the main issue with the St. Patrick’s Day parade) and shooting dead two unarmed citizens, as happened in Brooklyn.
De Blasio implies an equivalence that is plain nutty but this mayor is well known for having strange demons to exercise.
He refused to appoint an Irish community liaison, has rarely ever attended an Irish event other than keeping the community waiting until the last moment to announce an Irish community breakfast on St.Patrick’s Day, and arrives incredibly late at St.Patrick’s services.
Saying the St. Patrick’s Day parade has been violent is nonsense.
Indeed, there is marvelous security provided for marchers and the public by the hundreds of volunteers who staff the parade and the police who provide security.
This mayor has shown his tin ear and total contempt for the Irish once again.
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