STEPHEN CHERNIN/AFP/Getty Images Ray Kelly (left) who served as NYPD Commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg (right) says progress in improving police-minority relationships is slow. Repairing relations between police and minority communities after a grand jury refused to indict the cop accused of killing Eric Garner will be no easy fix, former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.
"Advances have been made (in building up police-minority relationships)," he said during a lively Yahoo News interview with Katie Couric.
"When you have an Eric Garner or a Michael Brown, it sets it back in the big picture."
Kelly's comments came about 24 hours after a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Garner's killing following a confrontation in Staten Island.
Pantaleo put Garner in a chokehold as he tried to take the father of six into custody on an allegation he was selling loose cigarettes on the street, prosecutors said. The city's Medical Examiner declared Garner's death a homicide.
The NYPD is becoming more diverse and the department is continually trying to improve its dialogue with communities of color, but there will always be more cops patrolling minority neighborhoods, because that's where the crime is, Kelly said frankly.
"There is a fair amount of crime in communities of color," Kelly said. "Ninety percent of murder victims are people of color. There is a lot of interaction there and some of those interactions can be negative."
Kelly's bluntness didn't sit well with black comedian, and former host of the FX television series "Totally Biased," Kamau Bell.
Joining the discussion with Couric and Kelly, Bell said he was actually afraid to sit next to the former NYPD commander.
"Being black in America is not feeling safe around the police," he said. "If I knew (Kelly) was going to be here, I would have watched this from home."
Bell said minorities in America are raised to fear and distrust the police.
"Whatever strides you made to improve community relations didn't make it to my house," he said.
Kelly shrugged off the comments, claiming that Bell was "just giving up" and saw "the situation as hopeless."
"I don't see the situation as hopeless," Bell fired back. "If I did see it as hopeless I would be hanging from a tree now."
"There is no solution," Kelly explained when pushed about how to improve police and minority relationships. "There is no magic wand. There are things you can do to increase diversity. You have to communicate all the time. Is there one easy answer? I where there was, but there isn't."
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