NEW YORK: Embattled Mayor Bill de Blasio yesterday urged New Yorkers to put aside politics and protests to mourn two murdered police officers as he sought to head off furious criticism of his conduct.
Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, were shot in the head through the window of their patrol car in broad daylight in Brooklyn on Saturday following weeks of anti-police protests.
Police named the shooter as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, whom officers said had a clear anti-police bias and who shot himself dead on a subway station platform just minutes after the murders.
“I think it’s a time for everyone to put aside political debates, put aside protests and put aside all of those things we’ll talk about in due time,” de Blasio told a police charity lunch.
“It was an attack on our democracy, it was an attack on our values and attack on every single New Yorker,” he said of the murders.
Police unions lashed out at de Blasio, accusing him of creating a dangerous mood by allowing demonstrators to shut down New York streets in protest at recent police killings of unarmed black men.
De Blasio, who has biracial children, has fended off mounting criticism for wanting to reform police tactics and allegedly not being sympathetic enough to the problems police face.
Yesterday, he praised the force unstintingly and called for a temporary lull in protests until after the funerals take place.
“We all need to understand each other better, we all need to hear each other better,” he said.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton admitted earlier that de Blasio had lost the trust of some officers, but came swinging out in his defense.
He said that he doesn’t believe “at all” that de Blasio increased the threat to police officers by allegedly not expressing enough sympathy for them by siding with demonstrators.
And he criticised police officers who turned their backs on the mayor at the hospital where the two cops were pronounced dead.
“I don’t support that particular activity, I don’t think it was appropriate, particularly in that setting but it’s reflective of the anger of some of them,” Bratton said.
AFP
