Head of Police Union Declares War on Protesters After NYPD Cops ‘Assassinated’

Two NYPD officers were killed in what New York City mayor Bill de Blasio described as “execution style” as they sat in their patrol car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on Saturday.

The man identified as the gunman, 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, turned the gun on himself after shooting officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. The Guardian quoted NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton, whose voice cracked with emotion during a press conference at Woodhull medical center, as saying that Brinsley had made “very anti-police” postings on the social media site Instagram.

Observers partial to police were already blaming the recent uprising against police racism and violence in response to the killings of African American men Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The Guardian reported:

The killings sparked an angry outburst from the leader of the city’s main police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Pat Lynch, president of the PBA, appeared to blame the deaths on the protesters who have taken to the streets of New York in recent weeks and on de Blasio, the mayor.

In a fiery press conference outside the hospital doors, Lynch said there was “blood on their hands [of] those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protest … [blood] on the steps of city hall, in the office of the mayor”.

“When these funerals are over,” said Lynch, “those responsible will be called on to the carpet and held accountable.”

A similar organization called the Sergeants Benevolent Association echoed Lynch’s statements on Twitter.

The blood of 2 executed police officers is on the hands of Mayor de Blasio. May God bless their families and may they rest in peace.

— SBA (@SBANYPD) December 21, 2014

Local television news appeared to show police turning their back on the mayor, the Guardian reported.

Liu and Ramos were killed shortly before 3 PM in their parked patrol car near the Tompkins Housing public development. Mayor de Blasio said, ““Our city is in mourning. … Our hearts are heavy. We lost two good men who devoted their lives to protect the city they loved. Our hearts go out to their families to their comrades in arms at the 84th precinct, to the family of the NYPD.”

Commissioner Bratton said the suspect Brinsley had shot and wounded a woman thought to have been his girlfriend in Baltimore county, Maryland earlier in the day.

Read more here.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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