Suggestions for improving the police department after De Blasio was elected reportedly included mints to prevent cursing and baby oil to break up protests

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Suggestions for reform of the New York Police Department explored after Bill de Blasio’s election as mayor included breath mints to prevent officers from cursing and spraying baby oil at protesters, a source told the New York Post on Thursday.

The ideas came from Michael Julian, who was appointed in November to be deputy commissioner of training, shortly before civil unrest in the city over the decision of a grand jury not to indict the officer involved in the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island.

Julian, who served under police commissioner Bill Bratton during the latter’s first term in New York City, under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, lasted just two months on the job before being transferred out, according to the Post, whose source said the final straw was the delivery of a box containing 10,000 breath mints.

The idea was reportedly that officers would take one any time they felt like swearing.

“He would come up with these wacky ideas. We would roll our eyes and move on,” the Post’s source said.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Julian’s ideas.

“We can teach them how to control their language. It’s not that hard,” Julian told reporters when he was appointed, adding that his department was going to teach officers “a lot of techniques to change their behavior”.

The baby oil idea, which the Post said Julian brought up the same day as the Eric Garner decision, was that protesters who link arms might be more easily separated if they were sprayed with the slippery substance, especially if officers were wearing rubber gloves.



Julian is now deputy commissioner of personnel, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed. He will continue to report directly to Bratton.

The behaviour of police officers became front-page news across the US last year, in New York’s case after the killing of Garner and the shooting of another unarmed black man, Akai Gurley, in a stairwell at a Brooklyn housing project.

Protesters joined a nationwide movement against perceived police brutality which coalesced after the shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown, in Ferguson in August. The officer who killed Brown was not indicted, sparking nights of unrest.

In December, De Blasio announced a re-training program for New York police officers.