Governor Andrew Cuomo said it’s time for New Yorkers to take a “societal deep breath” as he sought to defuse tension and end the angry rhetoric that erupted after the weekend shooting deaths of two police officers.
“I’m calling on everyone, all the leaders involved, for peace and unity,” Cuomo said today in a radio interview on WNYC. “Let’s honor the Holy Week and bring calm to the city.”
The ambush of two policemen sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn on Dec. 20 is inflaming tensions between the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s police unions. Officers turned their backs as the mayor walked into the room for a news conference where he called the execution-style killings of Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32, a “despicable act.” Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said de Blasio has blood on his hands.
Cuomo, a 57-year-old Democrat, declined to say whether he thought Lynch had gone too far, saying he didn’t want to perpetuate “a negative cycle.”
“Mayor Bill de Blasio is doing the best he can under the circumstances,” Cuomo said. “That’s the fundamental issue. There’s two different points of view that right now are seemingly irreconcilable.”
Growing Strains
De Blasio, who is scheduled to speak today at the Police Athletic League about strengthening the bond between police and the community, took office in January as the first Democrat to run City Hall in 20 years. He ran a campaign that highlighted economic inequality and overly aggressive police tactics.
Strains have been growing between the mayor and police unions this month over his response to a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer accused of killing a black Staten Island man with a chokehold. At a Dec. 3 news conference, de Blasio cast the discussion in personal terms, saying he and his wife Chirlane, who is black, have spoken with their son, Dante, on how to be careful dealing with police.
“That set off this latest firestorm, former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday on ‘This Week’’ on ABC. ‘‘And quite frankly, the mayor ran an anti-police campaign last year.’’
Deadly police encounters have sparked anger over what activists call inequities in the criminal justice system. Looting and arson followed a Missouri grand jury’s decision Nov. 24 not to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. Thousands have rallied in New York, Washington and cities across the U.S. since the Dec. 3 decision in the Staten Island case of Eric Garner, a 43- year-old father of six whose death while being held in a chokehold was recorded on video.
Bloody Hands
Lynch said de Blasio bears some of the blame for the shootings by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, who killed himself after the ambush. Earlier in the day, Brinsley had shot and wounded his former girlfriend in Baltimore County, Maryland, then made ‘‘very anti-police postings’’ on social media, police said. He took a bus to New York, arriving about four hours before the police killings.
‘‘There is blood on many hands, from those that incited violence under the guise of protest to try to tear down what police officers do every day,’’ Lynch said, according to a video posted on the union website. ‘‘That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor.’’
Albert O’Leary, a spokesman for the union, declined to comment on Lynch’s remarks in an e-mail.
At a news conference over the weekend, de Blasio said, ‘‘I don’t think it’s a time for politics or political analysis. It’s a time to think about families who just lost their father, their husband, their son.”
Sharpton Outraged
The Reverend Al Sharpton, the civil-rights activist, said he and the Garner family are outraged by the officers’ murders and that any use of the names of Garner and Brown in defense of the killing of police is “reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice.”
“We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown,” Sharpton said in a statement. “We have been criticized at National Action Network for not allowing rhetoric or chanting of violence and would abruptly denounce it at all of our gatherings. The Garner family and I have always stressed that we do not believe that all police are bad, in fact we have stressed that most police are not bad.”
Ramos was a two-year veteran of the department and was married with a 13-year-old son, while Liu had been with the department seven years and was recently married. The incident marks the seventh time since 1972 that a pair of city officers working together have been killed as partners, according to Police Commisioner William Bratton.
To contact the reporters on this story: Freeman Klopott in Albany at fklopott@bloomberg.net; Chris Dolmetsch in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net; Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net Mark Schoifet, Alan Goldstein
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