The following is via NY1:

Police Commissioner William Bratton is blaming his predecessor for low morale within the New York City Police Department.

Bratton critiqued the way former commissioner Ray Kelly led the department on WABC’s “Up Close” this weekend.

While he did say Kelly did a “great job” in the sense of keeping crime down, Bratton believes an overuse of stop-and-frisk ultimately led to low morale throughout the force.

“Morale coming into this department was awful, let me be quite frank with you,” said Bratton. “I don’t think I have an officer that comes up to me and thanks me, the unions for improving morale. For whatever reason, whatever variety of reasons despite their success at reducing crime, keeping the city safe from terrorism, morale in this organization was awful.”

In a statement made to the Daily News, the head of the Detectives’ Endowment Association backed up the new commissioner saying, “Although very successful against crime and terrorism, members of the NYPD were demoralized and rarely had the opportunity to enjoy their success mostly due to the relentless demand for numbers.”

But not everyone agrees with Bratton.

State Senator Martin Golden told the News “If morale was so bad, the cops would not be doing their jobs, crime would be up. Crime is down and continues to be down because of Kelly’s leadership.”

(Source: NY1)