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Bratton's Free Pass for Wall St. Weed User Blasted by Sergeants' Union Boss

By Trevor Kapp | October 26, 2015 10:48am
 The head of the sergeants union ripped NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton Sunday for his marijuana bust story.
The head of the sergeants union ripped NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton Sunday for his marijuana bust story.
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DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

MIDTOWN — NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton’s hands-off discipline for a woman he caught smoking weed near Wall Street earlier this month stinks of "political pandering," according to the head of the sergeants union.

Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins ripped Bratton on John Catsimatidis’ radio show Sunday for bragging about his leniency for a student who smoked pot on a public sidewalk — claiming it sends the wrong message to police officers and New Yorkers.

“We have our own police commissioner takes a marijuana cigarette out of someone’s mouth, a misdemeanor arrest, throws it in the sewer and then brags about it,” Mullins said on “The Cats Roundtable.”

“What do you think is being told to the members of the NYPD when you see those types of actions? It’s OK to avoid misdemeanor arrests? What message are you sending to the criminal on the street? I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Bratton told a crowd at a New York Law School breakfast earlier this month that he had been walking on Wall Street with his security team early one morning when he smelled marijuana.

“Directly in front of us is this young woman, happily puffing away with earphones in and her school bag,” he said.

“So my security officers came up on one side, I came up on the other and tapped her on the shoulder and she looked over.

“And I wish I had a photograph of that face. She instantly recognized me. We politely removed the marijuana and threw it into the local sewer and just suggested that she might have a better academic day without the influence of marijuana.”

Mullins also blasted the commissioner's stated idea to "front-cuff" some prisoners, claiming these loose policies embolden criminals and endanger police officers.

“The commissioner’s got 45 years in law enforcement,” Mullins said. “I, for the life of me, can’t figure out how he’s coming up with these policies that can only be described as lunacy and political pandering.”