"We have to have trust and respect for our criminal justice system. People have to respect it, they have to believe it's fair, they have to believe when someone does something wrong, even if they have a badge, that they will be punished.
"We have a judge who said the officer in the Eric Garner case should be fired. I did - in our society we say we follow the judge's orders and I think that's appropriate.
"You had an incident a couple of weeks ago where police officers had buckets of water thrown on them. That is not respecting the police. You know, police have to respect the community and the community has to respect the police and dousing NYPD officers or any officer for that matter with water is just the ultimate sign of disrespect. It's not just for those officers but for the entire force and the criminal justice system, so the old adage: you want respect, you give respect.
"When a judge says an officer should be fired because they did something wrong I believe the officer should be fired. The community needs to be respected and that's what the Eric Garner case is all about. It's gone on for five years. Five years that family has been suffering. Give them the respect of doing justice.
"At the same time, the police, the police officers should give respect, they should get respect. You don't douse a police officer with a bucket of water. You don't disrespect the police. They're putting their life on the line for all of us every day. Whether you're an NYPD or in the Nassau police or Suffolk police you're putting your life on the line and they should be respected and I think that is way out of the realm of acceptable behavior."
Editor's Note:
This was an answer by Governor Cuomo at a press conference on a different subject matter, when asked about police officer Daniel Pantaleo.
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