Own it, commish

Bill Bratton wanted the job of police commissioner. Now, he has to live with the consequences — for better or worse.

That means taking responsibility not only for crime, but for how much folks trust cops and approve of the job they're doing.

It should also mean defending his cops publicly against grandstanding politicians.

Instead, on Sunday, the NYPD commissioner blamed his predecessor, Ray Kelly — and "the stop, question and frisk controversy" during his tenure — for any distrust of cops by black New Yorkers.

Bratton claimed that this year he trimmed such stops to "less than 50,000," from 700,000. In fact, Kelly had already cut them to 190,000 last year — even as Bratton had ramped them up while he was overseeing Los Angeles' police department.

We appreciate Bratton's frustration. His boss is essentially saying the NYPD doesn't value black life. On ABC this past weekend, Mayor de Blasio repeated comments that he's raised his son to worry about what cops might do to him because of his color.

That's an outrageous thing for a mayor to say about his police force. But don't expect Bratton, who wants to keep his job, to publicly take issue with his boss. Far easier to point the finger at Kelly.

True, crime has fallen this year, as it did throughout the Kelly-Bloomberg era. But so has confidence in the police department. Back in January of 2013, the NYPD enjoyed a 70 percent to 23 percent approval rating. Last month, it was 54 percent to 39 percent.

Bill Bratton can't have it both ways: If he wants credit for the drop in crime on his watch, surely that means he owns the drop in confidence over the same time.

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