Dec 7, 2014
By Benjamin Bell

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani “fundamentally misunderstands the reality,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said today on “This Week” in response to Giuliani’s recent comments focusing on violence within African-American communities, rather than questions over police interactions with minorities that have sparked nationwide protests.

“I think he fundamentally misunderstands the reality,” de Blasio told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in his first television interview since a New York grand jury decided this week not to indict police officers in the July death of Eric Garner in Staten Island. “We’re trying to bring police and community together. There is a problem here, there is a rift here that has to be overcome.”

“You cannot look at the incident in Missouri, another incident in Cleveland, Ohio, and another incident in New York City, all happening in the space of weeks and act like there’s not a problem,” de Blasio added.

De Blasio was responding to comments made by Giuliani on Fox News last Sunday in which he said, “I think just as much, if not more, responsibility is on the black community to reduce the reason why the police officers are assigned in such large numbers to the black community. It’s because blacks commit murder eight times more per capita than any other group in our society.”

Giuliani, who had strained relations with many black New Yorkers during his tenure as mayor from 1994 to 2001, later said in separate comments that de Blasio’s response to the Garner case this week contributed to tearing down respect for the criminal justice system.