#De Blasio’s plan to silence NYPD unions is ‘legally baseless,’ experts say

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s threat to rein in the free-speech rights of the city’s police unions is little more than “bluster” and is “legally baseless,” experts on the First Amendment said Tuesday.

“The mayor is not constitutionally allowed to control the content of anyone’s speech unless it’s likely to lead to imminent unlawful action,” said George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center.

“It was more bluster than anything else,” he said. “His threat seems totally empty.”

Manhattan civil rights lawyer Eric Sanders also dismissed de Blasio’s threat, which the mayor made in response to unfounded assertions that three cops who were sickened by tainted milkshakes had been intentionally poisoned.

“What he is saying is legally baseless,” Sanders said.

Sanders, an ex-NYPD cop, also said the unions had the “absolute right to express their personal opinions on behalf of their membership, irrespective of whether the mayor, the police department or the public likes what their statements are.”

“All they are doing is reacting in an emotional way because of all of the things that are being done to the police officers,” he said.

“The mayor has to cut them some slack already.”

The NYPD on Tuesday said it found “no criminality” behind the milkshakes from a lower Manhattan Shake Shack that sent three cops to the hospital on Monday night, prompting the Police Benevolent Association and the Detectives’ Endowment Association to walk back comments claiming the cops had been targeted.

De Blasio on Tuesday attacked the unions over their earlier statements, saying, “these union leaders don’t want the truth.”

“They just want to sow division, and we have to figure out what the limits are on their right to do that,” Hizzoner said during a news conference at City Hall.