New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told Playboy Magazine that Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and other campaigning politicians are "full of s----" and will "say or do anything to get elected."
In an interview with the men's magazine, the outgoing police commissioner said that de Blasio and his Democratic colleagues pandered for votes by attacking the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk policies, the New York Daily News confirms.
Playboy reporter Glenn Plaskin asked the commissioner, in reference his political rivals, "Do you think they were just full of s---?"
"Absolutely," replied Kelly.
"It just goes to show you what some politicians will do," he continued. "They'll say or do anything to get elected. I know all these people. They all claimed to be friends of mine until their mayoral campaigns."
Kelly then took aim at former city Controller Bill Thompson, who ran against de Blasio. During Thompson's campaign, he ran a television ad saying that he would "end racial profiling in stop-and-frisk and get illegal guns off the street."
"How?" Kelly asked. "Nobody asked him how."
Kelly also said that he resented being used a "political football" in mayoral debates, according to The Associated Press. De Blasio will replace Kelly, who served as commissioner from 1992-1994, then from 2002 to the present. Kelly did not divulge whether he would have worked for another democratic mayor-elect. "I don't want to discuss it," he said.
The interview will appear in the December edition of the magazine, which hits newsstands today.
During the interview, Kelly also spoke about the Bloomberg administration, President George W. Bush and September 11. "It wasn't a question of if New York was going to be attacked again by terrorists, it was when," Kelly said.
"It wasn't a question of if crime was going to go up, it was by how much. It was a pessimistic time. People were expecting more mayhem to break out, people were leaving the city."
The commissioner then praised outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg. "A very intelligent person, and funny," Kelly said of Bloomberg. "He has tremendous compassion. I've gone with him to hospitals many times to visit police officers who have been wounded, or the families of officers who have been killed."
Kelly also dismissed criticisms by The Associated Press about the NYPD's surveillance of New York's Muslim citizens. "Those AP writers received a lot of leaks from disgruntled people in the NYPD who had retired or didn't get promoted," Kelly said.
"The AP said we categorized mosques as terrorist enterprises. That is simply not the case. We don't investigate buildings. We investigate people."
Kelly also dismissed the backlash against the NYPD's stop-and-frisk strategies. "You might read something snarky on Twitter," Kelly said. "But I could take you right now up to 125th St. in Harlem and young men will stop me for my picture and give me a very favorable and friendly greeting.
"They understand that we're saving lives in their community, that they're the ones at risk."
Kelly does not believe that the stop-and-frisk controversy will taint his time as police commissioner.
"I'm not looking for legacy or history books or whatever," Kelly said. "I know what we've done here is save a significant number of lives."