You probably saw the viral video of people throwing buckets of water on police in New York City when they were in the process of making an arrest. The police responded curiously by… not responding at all. This appeared to embolden the locals, who have taken to mocking and throwing things at cops in multiple neighborhoods. This led to a mob in Brooklyn literally pelting police with objects thrown from rooftops and shots being fired, leaving three officers with (thankfully) minor injuries. The response from Mayor de Blasio was lethargic at best and now the cops appear to have had enough. The local police union is calling on City Hall to stop throwing them under the bus and show some leadership. (NY Post)

“How are cops supposed to do our job in this environment? When will @NYPDNews or @NYCMayor @BilldeBlasio stand up & say enough is enough?” the Police Benevolent Association fumed on Twitter.

“Chaos is running the streets. This is outrageous — we’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Several hours of unrest began around 11 p.m. Saturday when cops responded to complaints of a large group of drunk people, the NYPD said.

Violence erupted when cops placed one person under arrest and onlookers turned on them, the NYPD said.

How did the Mayor respond to the latest attack on the police? With a tweet sent from New Hampshire.

Prior to this year’s spike in various crimes, New York City had spent decades serving as a model for law enforcement around the nation. They kept the murder rate lower than what’s being seen in cities ten times smaller than Gotham. They did it through policing based on the broken windows theory and making sure that those with a tendency to break the law knew that the cops would bust some heads if they needed to.

You can talk about “community policing” all you like, and there’s definite value to the idea that the cops need to foster positive, cooperative relationships with law-abiding citizens in their territory. But there remains another reality in law enforcement that certain liberal politicians and activists are loathe to admit. Effective law enforcement and an orderly society are only possible as long as the vast majority of the citizens respect and support the police. And those who would break the law need to live in fear of the police, knowing that they will be dealt with harshly when they choose to pursue lawlessness.

Those conditions are evaporating under the current leadership in New York. Bad actors clearly perceive the cops as being timid and lacking the support of City Hall and the courts. When someone runs up and does something as seemingly “harmless” as dumping a bucket of water on a police officer engaged in making an arrest, that person needs to be beaten down in a very public way. Assaulting the police is unacceptable and there have to be consequences for it or our system of law and order breaks down. And the Mayor needs to make it entirely clear that he will be backing up the cops, not throwing them under the bus.