The New York Times editorial board doesn't think much of police turning their backs on the Times' beloved far left mayor. In fact, they can't figure out why the cops are so upset.

They refer to the gesture as "repugnant and inexcusable" - which describes the mayor's rhetoric exactly.

They are also upset because police enforcement of petty crime is massively down compared to last year - "traffic citations had fallen by 94 percent over the same period last year, summonses for offenses like public drinking and urination were down 94 percent, parking violations were down 92 percent, and drug arrests by the Organized Crime Control Bureau were down 84 percent."

The Times doesn't mention the reason why cops are reluctant to write the summonses; “I’m not writing any summonses," said one cop. "Do you think I’m going to stand there so someone can shoot me or hit me in the head with an ax?”

The data cover only a week, and the reasons for the plunge are not entirely clear. But it is so steep and sudden as to suggest a dangerous, deplorable escalation of the police confrontation with the de Blasio administration. Even considering the heightened tensions surrounding the officers’ deaths and pending labor negotiations — the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has no contract, and its leader, Patrick Lynch, has been the most strident in attacking Mr. de Blasio, calling him a bloody accomplice to the officers’ murder — this action is repugnant and inexcusable. It amounts to a public act of extortion by the police.

And for what?

Let’s review the actions that Mr. de Blasio’s harshest critics say have driven the police to such extremes.

1. He campaigned on ending the unconstitutional use of “stop-and-frisk” tactics, which victimized hundreds of thousands of innocent young black and Latino men.

2. He called for creating an inspector general for the department and ending racial profiling.

3. After Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed by a swarm of cops on Staten Island, he convened a meeting with the police commissioner, William Bratton, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, giving Mr. Sharpton greater prominence than police defenders thought he should have had because Mr. Sharpton is a firebrand with an unsavory past.

4. He said after the Garner killing that he had told his biracial son, Dante, to “take special care” in encounters with the police.

5. He generally condoned the peaceful protests for police reform — while condemning those who incited or committed violence — and cited a tagline of the movement: “Black lives matter.”

The list of grievances adds up to very little, unless you look at it through the magnifying lens of resentment fomented by union bosses and right-wing commentators. The falling murder rate, the increased resources for the department, the end of quota-based policing, which the police union despised, the mayor’s commitment to “broken-windows” policing — none of that matters, because many cops have latched on to the narrative that they are hated, with the mayor orchestrating the hate.

Not mentioned as a "grievance" is the implication by de Blasio that the New York police department is racist. The Times sort of forgot the rest of de Blasio's quote:

Is Dante safe each night? There are so many families in this city who feel that each and every night. Is my child safe? And not just from some of the painful realities—crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods—but is safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors.

If de Blasio is so stupid and naive not to see that the bulk of the protestors are cop hating anarchists and radicals who seize upon statements like that as justification for murder, he doesn't deserve the respect of officers  Nor does he deserve to hold office at all.

The Times' selective recounting of police grievances and emphasis on a false narrative about both the protestors and police is part of the pushback against the NYPD. by the left. Only making the police the villians in their little dramas can they attack their opponents under cover of racism.