NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton and his predecessor Ray Kelly have not been getting on of late. Last week, Kelly—who is promoting his book—accused Bratton of manipulating crime statistics. “Shame on him,” Bratton said at a press conference Tuesday. “Let him back up that accusation.” Aw yeah, back that thing up.

New York City is expected to see a 2 percent decrease in reported crime by the end of the year, according to statistics released by the city and tracked by the FBI. Arrests have fallen 13 percent. Kelly, Bratton pointed out, did not offer any evidence for his claim.

“If you’re going to make it, stand up, be a big man, and explain what you’re talking about,” Bratton said at the unrelated press conference, according to Politico New York and the New York Times. “It’s amazing what comments you’ll make when selling a book.” (The NYPD’s chief spokesman tweeted that Kelly’s line of thinking was “fiction.”)

Kelly responded in a statement to Politico:

Kelly said that “like all New Yorkers, I am troubled by the eroding qualify of the life in the city that is obvious to anyone who lives here.” In support of his earlier claims, Kelly said “active members” of the NYPD have told him that the de Blasio administration “has changed the way shootings victims are calculated. For example, victim who incurs a graze wound are often not counted as a shooting victim, as was done previously. Similarly, a victim who sustains wounds by flying glass caused by a shooting is not recorded as a shooting victim.

Further, wounds sustained by a victim who refuses to cooperate with a police investigation have been recorded as self-inflicted.”

Kelly added that “In homicide, the category of ‘circumstances undetermined pending investigation’ has been misapplied to manipulate murder totals.”

Anyway, now they have to kiss. Be a big man. Arrest me. Handcuff me. Manipulate my statistics. Sorry, it’s the law.

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.