NYPD Lieutenant Apologizes For Taking A Knee To Protesters: “I know I made the wrong decision”
“I spent the first part of my career thriving to build a reputation of a good cop … I threw that all in the garbage in Sunday.”
The decision of police officers to take a knee based on heckling from the woke mobs is obviously an individual one. We’ve seen New York City’s top uniformed cop take a knee, and most of us cringed. We’ve seen cops washing the feet of black “faith leaders,” and most of us cringed. Likewise, we cheer when a police officer asserts that he kneels for no one but God.
One NYPD lieutenant who took a knee at the mob’s bidding is deeply remorseful and sent an email to his fellow officers to express his deep shame at doing something so completely against his, against law enforcement’s, against America’s nature.
In Foley Square, resounding chants of “NYPD take a knee.” Eventually, four cops kneel to huge chants. “We just want to get home safely, same as you,” says one protester. pic.twitter.com/6eRC4h9L0Q
— Jake Offenhartz (@jangelooff) June 1, 2020
In a June 3 email obtained by The Post Thursday, Lt. Robert Cattani of the Midtown South Precinct said he regrets his “horrible decision to give into a crowd of protesters’ demands” and kneel at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, with several other cops.
“The conditions prior to the decision to take a knee were very difficult as we were put center stage with the entire crowd chanting,” Cattani wrote. “I know I made the wrong decision. We didn’t know how the protesters would have reacted if we didn’t and were attempting to reduce any extra violence.”
. . . . “I thought maybe that one protester/rioters who saw it would later think twice about fighting or hurting a cop,” Cattani wrote. “I was wrong. At least that [sic] what I told myself when we made that bad decision. I know that it was wrong and something I will be shamed and humiliated about for the rest of my life.”
“We all know that a–hole in Minneapolis was wrong,” Cattani added, referring to fired cop Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with murdering Floyd.
“Yet we don’t concede [sic] for other officers’ mistakes,” he added. “I do not place blame on anyone other than myself for not standing my ground.”
Honestly, my heart goes out to him. How much strength of character must it have taken for him to be so unabashed in his self-indictment? Most people just bluster and attempt to defend their wrong actions, but here is a man willing to own his mistake.
The New York Post continues:
He wrote that his decision to kneel “goes against every principle and value I stand for.”
“I spent the first part of my career thriving to build a reputation of a good cop,” he said. “I threw that all in the garbage in Sunday.”
That took guts to write.
Ultimately, our law enforcement in our nation’s cities are under fire—literally, figuratively, all the ways. And it is hitting them hard.
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Comments
When you are in uniform it is not a personal decision.
To an extent. In this case I fully agree, but in a case where you are ordered to do something you know is against the law by your superiors, it should be your decision, your personal decision to disobey the orders you know are illegal, or immoral.
In a situation like that, it is difficult to keep your principles when weighed against fear and concerns for your well being, and possibly because you misread what is being demanded. I don’t envy this officer. He did what I consider the right thing at the end, but he wasn’t alone in kneeling which probably added to his own actions. I was disappointed in them kneeling, and in the washing of the feet. Same with those FBI agents (or at least what is reported as agents, the pictures make them look far out of shape, and only vests on).
I agree with you in that when you are there representing an organization, an agency, a police force, you become a public face for them, and your actions get magnified.
When I see these people taking a knee because of peer pressure and a momentary weakness in their convictions, it makes me physically ill. If you cannot live life based on your core beliefs and convictions, then it is not a life worth living for it will become a life of regret.
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Years ago (when I worked in a government position that eventually became quite political unbeknownst to me) my boss demanded I take actions that violated my convictions because I felt is was so very wrong that it was potentially even illegal. I was pressured by my manager’s lackeys to do the boss’ bidding and I still refused. I was attacked relentlessly and eventually was removed from my position to another in a different organization. Some time later, this manager’s lackeys were arrested and tried for performing the acts they tried to pressure me into performing. The manager claimed they knew nothing of their actions and skated.
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Years later, this same manager, among many others, demanded I relent on a call I made to save the organization an enormous amount of money. I refused and they brought all kind of pressure down upon me. Eventually they fired me which turned out great because the day I was fired I was interviewed over the phone for another position that paid 20% more and was 2000 miles closer to family. I took the job and six months later I received a notification that they found someone to make the call they wanted back at my old job. Things went terribly south for them when they ran with the call they demanded and many individuals were fired. The specific manager who put so much pressure upon me was not only fired, but was investigated by a grand jury, accused, tried and convicted.
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Even in my new government job (whole new organization from the old) I was pressured to make politically correct calls which ran against my convictions. In every case I refused and in every case I was later vindicated. I have since retired and have since had the local newspaper ask me for interviews concerning my legacy of doing what was right and standing up for the people who I was responsible for protecting. Evidently, living life ethically has now become a rare event.
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The moral of this story is to live according to your convictions. While the short term may become uncomfortable, in the long run you’ll likely be proven correct and you will have no difficulty sleeping at night. You will also be left with a reputation that will be the envy of many.
If you’re a law enforcement officer that cannot deal with being put in situations where your well being might be threatened then I would suggest you’re not law enforcement material and should find another line of work that would suitable to your temperaments.
Cops everywhere need to reconnect personally with the citizens they serve who almost unanimously support them. Talk to us. We are a resource who can help.
When they stopped being peace officers and became law enforcement, they lost interest in us as the citizenry and we became “civilians”, suspects. Not one of them. We must be guilty of something.
What happened is they were put in cars and stopped walking a beat. It didn’t help that they went from two cops to a car to one. The lone officer would probably prefer to not get out of his car by himself, so he won’t get out of the car unless absolutely necessary. So the cops don’t get to know the people in the neighborhood and the people don’t get to know the cops on the beat.
You are right. When I was growing up, we all knew the neighborhood cops. We saw them every day. They were part of the community. We saw them at church, they coached Little League, their kids went to the same schools…. Today, I have no idea who our neighborhood cops are and that is big part of the problem for them.
Seems to me he isn’t worthy of leadership. He caves to both sides.
Apparently you have never made a decision that you wish you could do over
Apparently your perfect, such a “man”
It takes a MAN to apologize publicly and I for one am very proud of him.
It takes a REAL MAN to stand up for the principles which he is supposed to represent. Some do. Some don’t.
Calm down and retract your claws…
I didn’t say he should be fired, but he’s not fit for leadership.
It’s not easy being a cop right now, and I am not the cancel culture of the left.
He did apologize.
But he is no alpha, that’s for sure.
Standing with Lt. Cattani.
Live by fashion, die by black radical or brainwashed white kid.
SJW Attack Survival Guide:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/vox-day/sjw-attack-survival-guide/
All this kneeling and bowing: everything obama did was for a reason. (I’ll say it a million times: he never had an original thought in his life, but he was on soros’ leash doing what he was told.) That reason it: it got people used to bowing in manufactured guilt.
We’ve got to hand it to the swamp/left/islamic axis: they planned well. And we kept voting in GOP rats.
Time to turn the tables.
My great fear is the signs of a military coup: all these military generals with big mouths all of a sudden, siding with the swamp/left/islamic axis.
What corrupt bastards. Swamp first, country second.
I do fear the military coup
I really didn’t prior to this, even though last year when I realized all the generals he use to surround himself with We’re gone…
Esper should never have been appointed always a Deep State
I don’t know did Mattis get him the gig?
He’s got to go, Trump is biding his time… hmm sometime in Nov I believe
I think PDJT is looking over his shoulder, realizing the swamp walls are closing in.
Barr is turning out to be the biggest rat: you’ll see.
Magically, Durham’s investigation will be nothing more than some paperwork and a slap on the wrist.
We WILL see a military coup attempt. The only thing that will save us will be the soldiers below the rank of general.
Now you know why so many victors of military coups are “Colonel”: the generals get too close to the top and become rotten apples.
You have never been more wrong in a post since you have been here. I’ll put my money where my mouth is. $100 to WAJ Media. Give me an “over/under” on John Durham indictments.
You take “zero” or STFU.
In my career, 63-93, I served under a lot of Presidents and their handprint was on every period, for better or worse. I do not recall, however, until the last two decades when general officers were so politically active the day after they were retired. And more recently, they seem to be dipping into the political waters even while still in uniform. The truly professional general officer seems to be in short supply these days and it shows in military leadership as well as political entanglement. I am truly concerned.
The Lt. is a political clown. He is the product of several liberal mayoral administrations. He is not a cop he is a politician. He can try to claim that he was doing this to protect his subordinates, but this is not true. He was doing it to curry favor with his political masters and, in so doing, was throwing his subordinates under the bus. Now, that he has discovered that his political masters are talking about throwing HIM under the bus, he tries to suck up to his subordinates for support.
To make it worse, he is either an idiot or a liar. he is supposed to be a trained, experienced LEO. Then he tries to dump all of this mess on Chauvin. Can he not read an autopsy report? Is he clueless that the MS found NO evidence that the action of the police caused Floyd’s death? The stress that being arrested may have contributed to his death by raising his blood pressure. But he would not have been under arrest if he had not passed a counterfeit bill and then refused to return the cigarettes that he bought with the bill, would he?
Lie after lie after lie.
Ann Coulter is the only one who has actually published any damn facts about what happened, everyone else is just publishing a narrative. The facts aren’t sympathetic to George Floyd, at least in a sane world.
There was a medical emergency that was unattended to and a man in police custody died. That was a fuck up. Everything up to that point is what happens when you throw down with a cop that treats every problem with hammer.
And, exactly how was the medical emergency not attended to? When were the paramedics called and how long did it take for them to respond? Why did the officers remove Floyd from the unit, after they had finally gotten him inside? Where is the body cam footage from these officers? And, what would you like the officers to do? CPR? Not in the COVID-19 era.
Floyd was the poster boy for terminal heart disease. That was compounded by his choice to ingest multiple illicit drugs, all at the same time. It might not have been a good idea to go out, while on these drugs, to go out and pass a counterfeit bill, then refuse to return the cigarettes obtained by tendering that bill when asked by the clerk.
Quit trying to ingratiate yourself with a bunch of people who cared nothing for George Floyd when he was alive and less for him now that he is dead. While the optics of Chauvin hold Floyd with his knee was horrendous, it apparently caused no damage. And our brain dead politicians simply refuse to even examine the evidence that the police were not responsible for Floyd’s death.
Floyd died because he lived a lifestyle that turned him into a cardiac time bomb. He aggravated that with drug use and continuing a life of crime. Get it right, please.
And yet Floyd’s death is more important that MLK’s assassination, according to the increasingly senile candidate in the basement. Good grief, if Trump could act presidential for an entire 24-hour period, he’d be 14 percentage points ahead in the polls..
A lesson for everyone regarding Ann Coulter: you cannot have it both ways.
She tried, and she fell on her face, and she will never rise again. She can print the cure for cancer, and it’ll be otherwise ignored.
No one on our side trusts her any more than we trust Niki Haley or McConnell.
I have been pretty outraged at the total abdication of the bedrock principle of the presumption of innocence for four police officers based on a horrible, horrible 8 minute video. In the beginning, there were calls by some pretty well known media personalities, bloggers and of course, the Twitter Mob calling for the arrest all four officers for first degree murder and capital punishment. All four. Because they just knew they were guilty.
As in many other cause celebres of the Left, the longer the investigation, the more incontrovertible facts become known, cutting hard against the media narrative. I feel like Atticus Finch.
#StandwithAtticusFinch
Those men are too damned fat to wear a uniform. Run them back through recruit training and put them on the scale at the beginning of each quarter.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/8/8b/Simpsonsworld_social_og_wiggum_1200x1200.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180204012916
but here is a man willing to own his mistake.
Maybe. Or maybe he’s a damp dishrag who will surrender to anything placed in front of him.
He probably caught a lot of flack from family and friends for being a pussy.
All of which demonstrates a simple truth. If you screw up, learn from it and do better in the future. Don’t apologize, it’s a sign of weakness and will gain you nothing but a fresh set of enemies.
The Left never forgives or forgets. Now we have the theory that racism in genetic in only Whites.
We have false claims, by the first (Somali) second (American blacks) dumbest and most racist groups in America, that white people are racist.
From what I have seen, the vast majority of white people would like to see dark skinned people succeed on merit, while many are really tired of having to deal with idiots who have been promoted because of race and who have NO Merit!!
That is where I stand on this issue, I want to see everyone achieve their full potential. I do not want to have to put up with obnoxious meritless fools.
He’ll be out of a job by tomorrow morning
“Honestly, my heart goes out to him. How much strength of character must it have taken for him to be so unabashed in his self-indictment?”
I am thinking about it differently. In front of him was a detachment from a nationwide terrorist organization that had already killed and injured people, and was threatening to kill them. Behind him stood a Stalinist mayor and city administration that was itching to do the same. It’s impossible for me to be too harsh on the officer since many people (myself included) might have done the same given the demonic pressure being brought to bear.
As always I encourage people to read The Gulag Archipelago to see how communism can force ordinary people into making hideous, degrading decisions just to go on breathing.
It’s like a German officer apologizing for standing by when the Brownshirts wreaked havoc, and the officer took a knee to Hitler.
And we do have American Hitlers now.
FBI took a knee in Washington State. Not more to say. They will probably regret it…or not. I’m beginning to have a hard time see those letters…was that FBI or GRU?
Welcome back. #DiscoverYourDignity
“I’d rather die standing, than live on my knees”
Emiliano Zapata
That’s almost ironic. ZapatO is Spanish for shoe.
land of the free(?)…home of the brave(?)
NOT ANYMORE
The only reason they stood back up is their knee got sore. Can’t have it both ways guys. Either stand up for the law or kneel for anarchy.
Sorry, LT. The toothpaste is out of the tube.
You and the schnooks who kneeled also are forever marked.
There is no appeasing the Woke Taliban.
The times we are living in… they have left me angry, bitter, cynical, but not sympathetic. Sympathy went the way of free speech, and smiling.
He should resign. That being said, I admit I have never had a job like his, never had the pressure. Maybe, just maybe, if I had any kind of similar life experience, I would feel differently.
Not now. Especially when I have read about our good Professor being attacked.
Kneel for NO ONE.
How about for the Constitution and Bill of Rights? And you’re against them? And against peaceable assembly?
Hit the wrong things instead of reply. Did not mean to rate this but to note that I will not kneel to any PERSON but will to the Constitution and Flag.
Subotai Bahadur [retired Peace Officer]
A professional police officer should stand up for law, but kneel to nothing.
The distinction between service and subservience is not negligible.
The sad truth is that our police got taken over by the communists a long long time ago, at the same time the rest of the government got taken over.
I think one of the problems was because the police and the military, the honest ones, were confused about the difference between partisan politics and obeying their oath to preserve protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The police and the military were convinced by the communist traitors that they couldn’t resist the destruction of the Constitution because that would be “political.” So given that understanding it is no surprise that the police and the military stood down with their fingers in their ass whilst the communists Democrats destroyed the country.
Fire the moron. This is totally unacceptable.
I spent 27 years of my life in law enforcement. I would never work with those cops who knelt.
If you’ve spent the last 3 decades in law enforcement, then, surely’ you must have realized that something was going horribly wrong. I maintain that the police got taken over by the communist traitors a long time ago, after systematic targeting, step by step, inch by inch. Law enforcement allowed themselves to be used as the mindless grinning bulldogs of the communists, willing to enforce pretty much any oppressive bunch of bullshit on the people, from “asset forfeiture” to the recent Chinese virus quarantines that amounted to martial law and house arrest for innocent citizens.
Excuse me Alice, can you tell me how I can get out of Wonderland?
Why are they kneeling?
Is this connected with the NFL kneeling during the National Anthem or something different?
It is connected to Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem.
Funny how the media ignores the fact that the objections to his kneeling were not about the reason he claimed to be kneeling but about the timing.
Nobody questions the absurdity of a rich black (bi-racial) celebrity athlete protesting that America is a racist country.
Yeah, but if Kaepernic was protesting are they protesting? What are the police protesting? The police protesting with the protestors who are protesting the police?
There was/is nothing absurd about it. FDR was a wealthy patrician New Englander who helped a lot of Americans survive the Republican-induced Great Depression. Then he helped save democracies across the globe from Hitler and the Nazis. You have a problem with that?
Mark Cuban, a wealthy American, seems not to be a total anti-science, anti-worker, anti-American values POS like the surviving Koch Brother or most Republiconartists since Tricky Dick Nixon was President. Is that such a bad thing?
Are they kneeling to show their support of Black Lives Matter? Is that what it is? When have policeman knelt before for other worthy organizations? Have they knelt for Lions Club, VFW, Boy Scouts, Shriners, Kiwanis, Salvation Army?
BLM is not a worthy organization.
You know what I meant. When have policemen ever knelt before at any other time in the history of New York? So why now? What is that makes this particular group “worthy”of policemen kneeling before them? Why now? Why this occasion?
An act of respect for Americans exercising their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble is not an endorsement of the people’s politics or philosophy. It’s respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It’s a great way to show respect for the Great Documents when the cops protect neo-Nazi Trump supporters, as well. Too bad Birmingham had Bull Connor in the 1960s instead of these cops.
How about out of respect for fellow Americans, peaceably assembling as is their Constitutional Right? The cops made a statement in support of their oaths as a member of an organization sworn to serve and protect–which they did–without resort to violence. They honored the Constitution and the nation, nothing to apologize for. Doing their job with dignity and showing respect for fellow Americans is far from being a dereliction of duty. It is the duty, without referencing whose rights were being protected, while peace was maintained.
“showing respect for fellow Americans is far from being a dereliction of duty. ”
It was not a show of respect. It was politically motivated groveling. And you know it. You’re as phony as they come.
Nice try, though, do spin again.
BullSchitt
The Oath of Office has become a hollow, meaningless joke. Right hands are raised, sometimes hands are placed on Bibles, words are spoken. Reminds me of Hemingway…
“I, nada, do solemnly nada, (or nada) that I will support and defend nada of nada against nada, nada pues nada; that I will bear true nada and nada to the nada; that I take this nada freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of nada; and that I will well and faithfully nada the nada of the nada on which I am about to nada. So help me nada.”
I seems as if The Oath means nothing anymore. It’s a photo op.
Now do the right thing and resign.
Now do the right thing and resign.