Embattled New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has some strong words for the Associated Press, which has published some 30 stories on the NYPD’s aggressive and wide-ranging “counterterrorism” operations. “We’re sort of under attack,” Kelly told NY1, picked up by the Observer’s Politicker. “It’s pretty tough to go up against a wire service that has a certain template that it’s sticking to.”
Accusing a news organization of “sticking to a template” is cutting enough. But, to top it off, Kelly also claims that the AP isn’t even doing it that well. “I would submit that they have not done their homework in terms of the Department of Justice Guidelines and the Handschuh stipulations,” he said. “Right in there it’s authorized to do what we’re doing” — that is, monitoring Muslim neighborhoods and campus groups, as well as garden-variety liberal organizations, in and outside of New York.
The press-blaming shouldn’t come as a surprise. Kelly has been feeling the heat in recent weeks: While Occupy Wall Street escalated at home, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the NYPD situation struck him as “disturbing.”
