NYPD Union Head: I Stalked De Blasio Around Park Slope To Get Pay Raises For Cops

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — The generous, $337 million NYPD contract agreed upon last week by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city's largest police union may not have turned out so generous, the union's president said over the weekend, had union supporters not pressured de Blasio by stalking him around Park Slope.

"We went out. We followed the mayor," Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said on the Catsimatidis podcast Sunday.

"We followed him to his favorite coffee haunt in Brooklyn," Lynch said. (Aka, Colton Patisserie at 9th Street and 6th Avenue.) "We went to his gym, the YMCA in Park Slope, to get him to focus on the contract. And I think it was effective."

Under the new contract — only the second voluntary agreement reached between the city and the police union in 23 years — patrol cops will see a significant pay raise. Specifically, their starting salary of $42,500 will double to $85,292 after five-and-a-half years on the job, as a thank you for participating in the NYPD's new "neighborhood policing" model. The entire force will also be outfitted with body cameras by the year 2020.

De Blasio said the contract was "the result of many hours spent negotiating between the city and the PBA."

Lynch, however, said the real trick was trailing de Blasio around Park Slope, the mayor's former neighborhood — before his move to the mayoral mansion on the Upper East Side — and still his favorite place to hang out.

"I thank our members" for coming out to Park Slope to lobby the mayor, Lynch said Sunday. "And equally important, I thank the support of the public we got when we were out there on that street corner trying to focus the mayor's attention. We got so much support from the people of Park Slope to help us, and all the other places we showed up."

At one demonstration outside the Prospect Park Y back in August, protest signs included "Put some sweat into working on our PBA contract" and ""'Workout' a contract with cops!"

"Eat later, pay us now!” union supporters chanted. “Work out later, pay us now!"

The mayor's awkward response:

Lead image via Google Maps