NYC mayor at officer’s funeral: ‘We must help our police’
NEW YORK — The public needs to step up to protect police at a time when they’re under attack, New York’s mayor and police commissioner said Tuesday as they paid respects to an officer ambushed and killed in a parked police vehicle.
“We’ve watched with horror these attacks on our police here in New York City and all around our country. It sickens us, and we know they cannot be tolerated ... ,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at Officer Miosotis Familia’s funeral at a 4,000-seat landmark theater-turned-church in the Bronx.
“We must help our police in every way, just as we ask them to help us in our moment of need. … They need us to be their eyes and ears. They need our solidarity and support,” he said.
Taking aim at protesters and the media for what he sees as too much criticism of officers, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Familia’s death “should remind everybody that the civility of our city rests on a knife’s edge.”
“Where are the demonstrations for the single mom who cared for her elderly mother and three children?” he asked to a thunderous standing ovation from an audience packed with officers. “There is anger and sorrow, but why is there no outrage?”
He called safety a shared responsibility between police and residents, and pressed the public “to make a commitment to help your police.”
The Democratic mayor’s remarks came after he faced criticism — some tweeted by President Donald Trump — for spending the weekend with world leaders in Germany days after Familia’s July 5 death. De Blasio attended Monday’s wake.
On Tuesday, he called Familia a hero who “lived life the right way.”