THE MARK OF A CHAMPION
Boxing great in tribute to Officer Familia
Boxer Floyd Mayweather paid a weekend visit to the Bronx station house where slain NYPD cop Miosotis Familia worked, to honor the fallen officer, officials said on Sunday.
Mayweather went to the 46th Precinct station house and posed for a photo in front of a portrait of the 48-year-old Familia.
The prizefighter, who has been promoting his upcoming bout with mixed-martial arts great Conor McGregor, dropped by on Saturday, officials said.
Familia, a mother of three, was shot by a cop-hating madman on July 5 while sitting inside a mobile police command vehicle in Fordham Heights.
Responding cops fatally shot her killer, 34-year-old Alexander Bonds, a short distance away.
Meanwhile, in an interview that aired Sunday, former NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir blamed Familia’s murder — in part — on the 2014 police shooting of 18year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
“Ever since Ferguson, which turned out to be totally bogus fake news about what Michael Brown did or did not do . . . there has been an atmosphere in the country where police departments and police officers are attacked constantly,” Safir told interviewer John Catsimatidis.
“The atmosphere was created and continues to be created by the media,” Safir said, asserting that this same climate “is what led people like this perpetrator to literally execute a fine police officer who was out there doing her job.”
This racially charged setting, post-Ferguson, could only “embolden” a known cop-hater like Bonds, according to Safir.
“As long as this atmosphere prevails about police being brutal and racist and involved in misconduct, we are going to continue to embolden criminals to go after, not only police, but after citizens,” Safir said.
Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, was trying to arrest the unarmed Brown, who was black, when he shot Brown 12 times, sparking riots in Ferguson and across the country.
Brown was alleged to have robbed a convenience store of cigarillos shortly before his death. Footage released in March seems to show that the teen appeared to be trading drugs for cigarillos 11 hours before the robbery.
The federal Department of Justice ultimately stood behind Wilson’s actions but found that the Ferguson police force and local courts still engaged in a “pattern or practice of unlawful conduct” which disproportionately affected African-American citizens.
Safir served as New York City’s police commissioner under thenMayor Rudy Giuliani in the late ’90s.
The 75-year-old, speaking on “The Cats Roundtable” on AM 970, lauded the city’s current commish, James O’Neill, for his “quiet” approach to policing.
“He speaks when he needs to, but he is not out there looking for press,” Safir said.
“He is out there looking to keep the city safe. And to his credit, crime continues to go down in New York while the rest of the country is headed towards chaos.”