The merciless gunshot slaying of New York City police officer
Brian Moore has not elicited one word of outrage even as anti-police protests rage across the country, former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik says.
He told J.D. Hayworth, host of "Newsmax Prime" on
Newsmax TV, that the death of Moore, 25, was a "sad, sad day for the New York City Police Department."
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Kerik is the author of the new best-seller,
"From Jailer to Jailed: My Journey From Correction and Police Commissioner to Inmate #85888-054."
A grand jury will be asked to return a first-degree murder indictment against the shooting suspect,
Demetrius Blackwell, officials announced Monday.
"As we mourn this cop, he was not a drug dealer, he didn't have a long rap sheet, he was a pillar in his community, he was a protector for our society," Kerik said of Moore, whose father and other relatives also were officers.
"He was somebody that stood between good and evil, but I don't hear any outrage, I don't hear any community leaders screaming and yelling," Kerik said.
"I don't hear the civil-rights leaders screaming and yelling. I don't hear any protests, I don't hear anything that went on when some others have died over the last six, eight, 10 months," he added, referring to anti-police brutality demonstrations that followed the police shootings of
Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and 12-year-old
Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; and the police chokehold death of
Eric Garner in New York City.
"[Moore] and other cops like him go out every day all over this country to protect and serve their communities," Kerik said. "He died doing so. He deserves respect, he deserves that outrage, and it's just not there."
Kerik added, "You have to believe so" when asked whether Moore's slaying might have been fueled by the anti-police sentiments in recent months.
"Who knows what [Blackwell] was thinking," Kerik said. "The ironic thing is he was already arrested, charged, and imprisoned for attempted murder, and now he took it a step further."
Kerik said, however, that he hoped New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio, who came under fire in the wake of two officers' deaths last December, fully understands the sacrifice of police who die in the line of duty.
"You don't want to get into politics on a day like this, but the reality is the cops in the New York City Police Department and cops all over this country, they need to be supported by our leadership," Kerik said.
Although Kerik said he supports the opinion of some legal experts that the charges against six Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray have "major loopholes" and that society has a "balancing act" ahead.
"First-time, nonviolent, low-level drug offenders, they're being put in prison for 10 to 15 years," Kerik noted. "Everybody should be held accountable for their actions, but in a state criminal charge, something like that would be a misdemeanor . . . You create monsters out of these kids and then you send them back into a community where they're a convicted felon, where they can't get a job.
"There has to be a discussion on how we proceed with criminal charges," Kerik said.
Kerik is the author of the new best-seller,
"From Jailer to Jailed: My Journey From Correction and Police Commissioner to Inmate #85888-054."
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