Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons bashed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in a radio interview on Thursday, calling him a “b**ch” for not doing enough to enact meaningful police reform in the city.
Simmons was speaking on HOT 97’s Ebro in the Morning show when the talk turned to the state of policing in New York.
“Our police commissioner [Bill Bratton] is bullying our punk mayor that we worked so hard to put in office,” Simmons said.
He (de Blasio) knows his kids are at risk. He knows that if a cop shoots his kid and there is no footage, that cop is not getting charged. And that’s because there are no special prosecutors. There should be independent prosecutors who don’t work for the police who have to look at these cases individually.
The Def Jam Records co-founder told Ebro and the HOT 97 team that Andrew Cuomo told him he would appoint a special prosecutor himself if legislation couldn’t be passed to get them.
“Look what they did to the mayor,” Simmons lamented. “They just made him into a… y’all can say b**ch? He’s a b**ch.”
Simmons called NYPD officers turning their backs on the mayor at the funeral of slain police officer Rafael Ramos “illegal.”
“He should have told them, ‘Turn around or go home,'” Simmons said. “He should have told them. And he’s got the police commissioner pushing him around like he’s a b**ch. And it’s shocking to me that he’s not stood up for the people of New York.”
Karen Hinton, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, issued a statement defending de Blasio from Simmons’s accusations:
At Mayor de Blasio’s direction, Commissioner Bratton has retrained officers and stopped excessive stop and frisk which the Mayor believes led to unconstitutional searches of innocent people of color but did nothing to reduce crime overall.
We also welcome and encourage Mr. Simmons’ help with convincing Albany and the Governor’s Office to reform rental regulations by ending vacancy decontrol and developer bonuses, as well as the exorbitant tax credits that developers get without building any affordable housing. These reforms would go a long way toward helping people of color find and keep homes they can afford.
Simmons’s sentiment was drastically different in 2013, when he enthusiastically supported and campaigned for de Blasio.
“I want a candidate who is not afraid to offend a few people to support what he thinks is right,” Simmons said at the time.
Check out the full interview above, courtesy of HOT 97.
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