Excerpt:
A plan to honor a Harlem cop killed by Nation of Islam radicals is drowning under a flood of racial tensions created more than four decades ago, but no one wants to throw it a lifeline — not even the NYPD's new top cop.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is distancing himself from the controversial push to get the street in front of the 28th Precinct renamed in honor of Officer Phillip Cardillo, who was shot and killed inside a mosque run by Louis Farrakhan in 1972 — noting that the community should make the final decision.
"The Police Commissioner always welcomes the honoring and memorializing of fallen NYPD officers," Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis, the NYPD's top spokesman, said when asked if Bratton favored the street renaming. "However, the issue of street naming is primarily a decision for the community board and other local leaders."