New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton criticized President Barack Obama over his proposed 50 percent cut in federal counter-terror funding, calling it "mind-boggling."
New York City remains committed to the counter-terrorism effort, Bratton said Sunday on
"The Cats Roundtable" on AM 970 in New York. h1 The force has added 2,000 total officers, allowing for the creation of a 550-member counter-terrorism unit with 800 more trained and equipped in crowd control.
That, Bratton told host John Catsimatidis, enabled him to quickly deploy hundreds of officers into the subway system after the recent Brussels attacks.
But Bratton's current concern is the White House's intention of cutting counter-terrorism money by almost $200 million.
"It makes no sense," he said. "It's mind-boggling that we have to fight with our own government to get money to protect our cities, particularly when cities around the world are being attacked."
Still he said he is optimistic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and others will succeed in efforts to restore the funding.
On other subjects, Bratton said:
- The level of cooperation between governments and intelligence agencies and police forces in Europe has remained "problematic" with policing seeming to stop "at the old national boundaries ... That is a problem ... It needs to be addressed."
- Sen. Ted Cruz's call for increased surveillance of Muslims after the Brussels attacks was "very anti-American, anti-Muslim ... I took Mr. Cruz's remarks as a denigration, not only of a religion, of a people, but of my police officers and the civilian employees in this department."
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