Union says New York Mayor now has blood on his hands

NEW YORK Mayor Bill de Blasio faced the biggest crisis of his political career yesterday after a gunman killed two police officers in an attack intended to avenge recent police killings of unarmed black men in the United States.

New York police officers turned their backs on de Blasio in protest during a news conference and their union said the mayor had blood on his hands after Sunday’s shooting.

The gunman’s posts on Instagram indicated he had been motivated by the deaths of 18-yearold Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police officers.

De Blasio, elected last year on promise to advance civil rights after two decades of tough policing, helped New York shed its reputation for violent crime. He was sympathetic to protesters who poured into New York’s streets after a grand jury declined earlier this month to indict the officer who killed Garner in a chokehold in July as he resisted arrest.

The mayor’s stance has led to sometimes tense relations with the city’s largest police union. Police critics view the mayor as not supportive enough at a time of public anger.

‘‘Mayors tend not to do well when the police department and its officers are not happy,’’ said New York political strategist Hank Sheinkopf, whose clients have included de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael Bloomberg.

New York police have turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio following the shooting of two on-duty policemen in the city on Sunday.

Leaders of recent anti-police protests, including longtime New York civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton, have condemned the officers’ murder.

New York’s Roman Catholic cardinal, Timothy Dolan, warned of rising tensions during a service attended by de Blasio.

‘‘We worry about a city tempted to tension and division,’’ Dolan said at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Flags across the state flew at half-mast and the 13-year-old son of one of the deceased officers bid his father good-bye in a Facebook post.

‘‘It’s horrible that someone gets shot dead just for being a police officer,’’ wrote the son of Rafael Ramos, 40, who was killed alongside his police partner, 32-year-old Wenjian Liu.

Funeral plans had not yet been announced for Ramos and Liu, who were the first on-duty police officers to die in gunfire in the city since 2001. But the ceremonies could end up underscoring the divisions between the police and the mayor.

The police union had previously started a campaign in which officers could fill out a form asking de Blasio and other city officials not to attend their funerals if they were to die in the line of duty.

It was not clear yesterday how many officers had filled out the forms.