NYC mayor requests suspension of protests
De Blasio says it’s time to mourn fallen officers
NEW YORK – As the New York Police Department mourns two of its own, Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded for a pause in protests and rancor amid a widening rift with those in a grieving force who accuse him of creating a climate of mistrust that contributed to the executions of two officers.
De Blasio on Monday called for a halt of political statements until after the funerals of the slain officers, an appeal to both sides in a roiling dispute centered on the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers.
“We are in a very difficult moment. Our focus has to be on these families,” de Blasio said at police headquarters. “I think it’s a time for everyone to put aside political debates, put aside protests, put aside all of the things that we will talk about in all due time.”
De Blasio’s relations with the city’s police unions have tumbled to an extraordinary new low following Saturday’s shooting, an ambush the gunman claimed was retaliation for the police-involved deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
In a display of defiance, dozens of police officers turned their backs to de Blasio at the hospital where the officers died, and union leaders said the mayor had “blood on his hands” for enabling the protesters who have swept the streets of New York this month since a grand jury declined to indict an officer in Garner’s chokehold death.
De Blasio, though he said he did not agree with the union leaders’ comments, largely tried to strike a unifying note in his first extensive question-and-answer session since the officers’ shooting. He said he was confident the city was “working toward a day where we can achieve greater harmony toward policing and community.”
Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were ambushed Saturday afternoon by a man who vowed in an Instagram post to put “wings on pigs.” The suspect, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, was black; the slain officers were Asian and Hispanic.
The killings came as police nationwide are being criticized following Garner’s death and the shooting death of the 18-year-old Brown. Protests erupted after grand juries declined to charge officers in either case.
Monday, a prosecutor said a white Milwaukee police officer who was fired after he fatally shot a mentally ill black man in April won’t face criminal charges.