After the death of Eric Garner, Mayor de Blasio ordered sweeping reforms for the NYPD. Unfortunately, all he got was the bizarre ideas of a police ‘bigwig’ whose ideas included arming cops with breath mints and spraying protestors with baby oil.
According to the New York Post, Michael Julian only lasted two months on the job after being appointed deputy commissioner of training in November. His ridiculed proposals resulted in him being transferred out and reassigned as deputy chief of personnel.
“He would come up with these wacky ideas. We would roll our eyes and move on,” a police source said.
The final nail in the coffin came in late January when a box of individually wrapped breath mints arrived at headquarters. Julian said officers should pop mints in their mouth when they have the urge to curse, a follow up to his demands when he took the job officers should stop using foul language.
The way he explained it, the mints would help them quit by giving them something else to focus on when they felt the need to curse, similar to how a smoker kicks the habit. Needless to say, the mints were never distributed to officers.
Another one of his mocked suggestions was to spray unruly protestors in massive demonstrations with baby oil to help get them apart. He said cops could wear rubber gloves so they could still grip the suspects.
Julian served under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton during his first stint as a cop in the 1990s and spent 20 years away from the department before being hired back as a consultant in September. His initial task was to review use-of-force protocols after the Garner death.
He was in attendance at the press conference with Bratton and de Blasio after the Garner grand-jury decision to announce the retraining of city cops, including three-day seminars for 22,000 officers. Despite being bumped from the position, Julian will still play a role in the training. NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis claimed the transfer was “essentially a promotion.”
According to Davis, Julian’s position changed simply because Deputy Commissioner Arnold Wechsler retired on Dec. 31 and Julian had held that position in his last stint with the NYPD. However, another source claims Julian only landed on his feet because, “He is still a major factor in Bratton’s cabinet. This is Bratton’s guy.”
Bratton is currently eyeing a candidate from LA to fill the deputy chief of training position.