New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is raising eyebrows following reports the 2020 hopeful jettisoned home from his Canadian vacation on a counterterrorism aircraft.
Mayor de Blasio flew from Quebec to New York City to attend a memorial service on Thursday for detective Miosotis Familia, who was murdered in an NYPD mobile command center in Fordham Heights in July of 2017. Hundreds of officers famously turned their backs on de Blasio when he spoke at Familia’s funeral. The far-left Mayor sparked outrage for flying to Germany the following day to attend the G20 protests in Hamburg.
“NYPD is transporting him in their plane,” Eric Phillips, a spokesperson for the Mayor, said in a brief statement to the New York Post.
The city’s police department refused to comment on de Blasio’s reported use of the plane. “The NYPD, as a longstanding matter of policy, does not comment on specific details regarding the protection of elected officials,” said a spokesperson.
The plane, a Cessna 208 Caravan equipped with radioactive material sensors, was purchased by the city’s police department for $3 million in 2017.
One NYPD source told the Post that de Blasio’s use of the aircraft was over the top.
“I think it’s excessive, because that wasn’t what that plane was designed to do. It’s designed for counterterrorism measures. To go to Canada to get the mayor? It’s excessive,” the source said, adding, “It is very unusual to go on an international flight to go pick up the mayor.”
According to the paper:
Data from flight-tracker website FlightAware shows a Cessna Caravan with a tail number previously identified by Wired.com as belonging to an NYPD “spy” craft flying from MacArthur at 6:36 a.m. Thursday and landing at Montreal-Trudeau Airport by 8:18 a.m.
The plane departed Montreal less than an hour later and landed at Westchester County Airport near White Plains at 10:58 a.m.
By noon, the mayor was speaking at a street co-naming for Familia. The plane later departed Westchester for Montreal at 1:48 p.m., arriving at 3:34 p.m., records show.
The trip to Canada was a departure from the plane’s normal pattern of two- to three-hour flights starting and ending at MacArthur, data shows.
The New York City Mayor recently made national headlines for proposing the abolishment of ICE, joining calls from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Addressing a citizenship event at John Jay College of Criminal Justice last weekend, de Blasio praised demonstrators for protesting against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, while vocalizing his support for dismantling ICE. “We need comprehensive immigration reform and we need new agencies to replace ICE,” he told the crowd. “There’s a way to handle immigration properly, and we have to start working for that day.”
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