[OG Note: Many of you know that I have a good bit of personal knowledge about three different city police departments. Except for the high-ranking officers, who must play politics, the patrol officers will tell you that community policing, in general, is failing in most communities. Most police officers also know that the Clintons, and people like them, hold police officers in contempt.]

Clinton meets with police union

NEW YORK (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton met with the leaders of the police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association on Monday, her first meeting with the organization that endorsed her rival during the Senate campaign.

''I am working very hard to offer whatever assistance I can to making sure the brave men and women of law enforcement are given the respect they deserve,'' she said after making a speech to the New York Building Congress.

She criticized President Bush's new budget, which scraps funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services officer-hiring program, or COPS.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said the president was committed to crime prevention.

''There's a whole war on crime in this budget,'' he said.

As for the COPS program, Lisaius said it ''was a three-year commitment ... that three-year commitment has been honored.''

Clinton also called for better police-community relations.

''There should be a real opportunity for the public and the police to really recognize what each other has at stake,'' she said.

Patrick Lynch, president of the PBA, said he and Clinton ''had a cordial and productive discussion of many issues of mutual concern.''

He said that he spoke to Clinton about recruiting and retention issues in the New York Police Department and that she pledged to address those issues.

''We exchanged ideas on a wide range of subjects affecting law enforcement in general and New York City's cops in particular - including the issue of racial profiling and the problem of summons and arrest quotas - and we agreed to engage in a continuing dialogue,'' Lynch said.

Clinton mentioned the cutting of federal funds for police officers to the Building Congress as well, along with speaking out against Bush's tax-cut plan.

In September, the PBA, which represents 27,000 city police officers, endorsed Republican Rep. Rick Lazio for Senate.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001