NY Mayor Bill de Blasio Under Fire for Urging Protest Pause & Stephen Collins Admits Abuse

Former FBI profiler Jim Clemente examines the tension in New York City between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD in the wake of the gunning down of two officers last weekend – and also addresses the admission of actor Stephen Collins that he sexually abused an underage victim.

Clemente begins by addressing the ongoing protests in New York City - which some people have blamed on triggering the latest killings of the two officers – which in part included racist slogans chanted by marchers in the wake of the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

“That is absolutely not appropriate – that is hate-speech. They’re saying, ‘What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it, now!’ That kind of speech is what the U.S. Supreme Court has constantly said is fighting words or hate-speech, it’s not protected by the First Amendment.”

On de Blasio’s handling of the protests and latest police killings, Clemente said he believes he was trying to politically play both sides of a difficult situation.

“I think he was trying to balance his statements, and I think he was trying to make sure that he didn’t incite riots, that he didn’t disenfranchise groups of people that feel disenfranchised. So I think the mayor was being political and I think he probably did the right thing.”

Clemente adds that the inflammatory statements by the police union against the mayor in the case were typically misstated, in order to get maximum press coverage for their cause. “I think they’re gearing up for a fight, they want to fight head-to-head with the mayor, and they want the mayor to do more to protect their image and what they do.”

The panel also analyzes the profile of the suspect in the shooting deaths of the two officers – which New York authorities have called assassinations.

The conversation also turns to the recent admission by 7^th Heaven star Stephen Collins to child sex abuse, and whether he is possibly a reformed person after many years of therapy.

“I don’t think there is a cure for being a preferential child sex offender, and it sounds like that’s what Stephen Collins is. In other words, he has a long-term persistent pattern of behavior where he exhibits a sexual attraction to children – people under the age of 18, in fact 10, 13 and 14 year old girls.”

Clemente said he does not believe that Collins or other individuals are fully “curable” of that proclivity. “But I think he may have learned behaviors to help avoid offending.”

Collins also states in his recent interview with People magazine that he also was molested as a youngster, and concludes that this must have also led to his own acting out.

“He’s trying to use it as if it’s some sort of justification – you know a bad justification – for what he did to these girls,” Clemente said. “The fact is that there is no actual, legitimate connection between being victimized yourself and actually victimizing other children.”

Watch the full episode to also hear a discussion about Sony’s decision to reverse course and allow screenings of the comedy The Interview despite earlier threats by the Sony hackers to disrupt screenings during the film’s planned Christmas Day opening.