The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
N.Y. mayor to mourners: ‘Wemust 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 offifficer ambushed and killed in a parked police vehicle.
“We’ve watched with horror these attacks on our police here in New York City andall around our country. It sickens us, and we know they cannot be tolerated, and we know they must end,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told mourners at offifficer Miosotis Familia’s funeral at a 4,000-seat landmark theater-turned-church in the Bronx.
“We must end it,” de Blasio said. “Wemust 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.”
Taking aim at protesters and the media for what he sees as too much criticism of offifficers, 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, extended 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 cameafter he faced criticism for spending the weekend with world leaders in Germany days after Familia’s July 5 death.
“She embodied the American dream,” de Blasio said at Tuesday’s service, calling Familia a hero who “lived life the right way.”
Asea of police in blue uniforms filled the theater and the street outside to pay tribute to the 12-year officer and former health care worker, who was later buried at a nearby cemetery. One of 10 children of immigrant parents, she was the first person in her family to go to college and had always wanted to be a police offifficer, her family said.
“She was brave enough to do that knowing that there’s consequences, like danger, but she loved us,” said her 12-year-old son, Peter Vega, whomshe called Jacob. “She wanted to sacrifice for us, so she did it.”
Familia was posthumously promoted Tuesday to detective.
Familia was the first female NYPD officer to die in the line of duty since 9/11.
At 48, shewas in an RV-like command post stationed ina crime-rid den Bronx precinct when Alexander Bonds, 34, walked up and fired once through the passenger window, striking Familia in the head. Officers killed Bonds after he turned the gun on them, police said.
An ex- convict, Bonds had railed about police and prison officer sin a Facebook video last fall.