In a toast to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday suggested the best thing to do when trouble is brewing is grab a beer.
The mayor yesterday invited City Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn) and Kirsten John Foy, an aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, to share a cold one so nobody gets hot under the collar when they discuss why they were detained by police at the Caribbean parade Monday.
“I assume it’ll probably turn out to be a misunderstanding,” Bloomberg said.
“I had a private conversation with him when I’d heard about the incident,” Bloomberg said, speaking of Williams, who, like Foy, later declined his invite.
The mayor said Williams “had talked to the Police commissioner, who told him he was going to do an internal investigation.”
Then Bloomberg — as Obama did in 2009 — called for a suds summit.
“The police have a job to do and the city councilman has a job to do, and hopefully, every once in a while, if there’s a misunderstanding, they have a beer together and work it out,” Hizzoner said.
Obama reached into the White House refrigerator two years ago when prominent black Harvard professor Henry Gates Jr. was arrested by Cambridge, Mass., cops responding to a report of a possible break-in at his home. The officers hadn’t realized Gates was the owner.
Obama had declared that cops acted “stupidly” in charging Gates, a friend, with disorderly conduct for trying to get into his home.
To defuse tensions, the president arranged a beer sit-down with Vice President Joe Biden, Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley.
Williams and Foy issued a joint statement saying that while they appreciated the mayor’s gesture, they weren’t about to follow the Obama-Gates mediation formula.
“We would rather have a meeting with the mayor and Commissioner [Ray] Kelly where young African-American and Latino New Yorkers can talk openly and directly about their experiences with stop-and-frisk and other police interactions,” they said.