New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday that people of his city should always cooperate with police officers when placed under arrest.
“When a police officer comes to the decision that it’s time to arrest someone, that individual is obligated to submit to arrest,” de Blasio said at a press conference, The New York Post reported.
De Blasio was responding to a statement made Tuesday by the city’s police commissioner Bill Bratton, who said in a radio interview “[t]he place to argue your case is in court, not in the middle of the street.”
More broadly, the mayor’s remarks came on the heels of recent outrage over the death of Staten Island resident Eric Garner, killed in a chokehold by a NYPD officer.