Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Friday that “The Third Jihad,” a film depicting many American Muslim leaders as extremists, “should not have been shown” to New York City officers.
The film was played on a loop for officers during 2010 in a waiting area outside a counterterrorism training course, Mr. Kelly said. He placed responsibility for the decision to show the film on a sergeant, whom Mr. Kelly did not identify. “A sergeant, I think well meaning, took this film and put it in a loop in a room that was outside of the training area,” Mr. Kelly told reporters at Police Headquarters.
The disclosure that the Police Department showed the film to many officers has strained relations between it and the city’s Muslim communities.
The film claims that “much of Muslim leadership here in America” aims to “infiltrate and dominate” the United States. On Friday, Mr. Kelly characterized the film “as “inflammatory” and “a little much.”
The film included an interview with Mr. Kelly; in his brief appearance, he speaks about the general threat of a nuclear or biological terror attack on the city but does not criticize Muslims.
In remarks on Friday, Mr. Kelly played down his involvement in the film, saying he often sits for interviews.
“In this job, you do a lot of interviews,” he said.
Mr. Kelly suggested that the decision to screen the film did not go through ordinary channels. He said that ordinarily the department’s counterterrorism division approved the material that was used as part of its training. But in this instance, he said, the film “was never approved” by the division. The sergeant who screened the film was not part of the counterterrorism division, he said.
Mr. Kelly said that he first saw the film on Tuesday, the day after an article in The New York Times disclosed that at least 1,489 police officers had seen it.