Don’t politicize funerals, commissioner warns
New York officers scolded for turning their backs to mayor at funeral for fallen comrade
NEW YORK— A day after the funeral of one of two police officers gunned down in their patrol car, New York City’s police commissioner called Sunday for a “lot less rhetoric and a lot more dialogue” to defuse the tension between police officers and the minority communities they protect. Police Commissioner William Bratton also said it was “very inappropriate” for police officers to turn their backs on the city’s mayor in a sign of disrespect as he spoke at a slain officer’s funeral in New York.
Speaking on NBC television’s Meet The Press, Bratton said the “pent-up frustrations” that have caused people to take to the streets in recent weeks go far beyond policing policies across the U.S.
“This is about the continuing poverty rates, the continuing growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor. It’s still about unemployment issues. There are so many national issues that have to be addressed that it isn’t just policing, as I think we all well know,” he said.
Bratton said rank-and-file officers and much of America’s police leadership feels under attack, including “from the federal government at the highest levels.”
He urged: “See us. See the police. See why they have the anxieties and the perceptions they have.”
Bratton also appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation, where he defended Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying it was wrong for hundreds of police officers to turn their backs to a video monitor outside a Queens church as de Blasio spoke at the funeral of slain Officer Rafael Ramos.
“I certainly don’t support that action,” he said. “That funeral was held to honour Officer Ramos,” he said. “To bring politics, to bring issues into that event, I think, was very inappropriate.” He acknowledged, though, that the morale of officers is low and said their actions “unfortunately” reflected the feelings of some toward the mayor.
Some police officers blame de Blasio for creating an atmosphere of negativity toward the New York Police Department in the city after a grand jury declined to charge an officer in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island.
The mayor has been portrayed by some critics as too supportive of protesters who have been criticizing police.
Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, were shot to death as they sat in their patrol car in daylight. After the officers’ deaths, the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley killed himself. Police said he was troubled and had shot and wounded an ex-girlfriend in Baltimore earlier that day.