(Eagle News Service) — Hundreds to thousands of New York police officers turned their backs on a screen which showed city Mayor Bill de Blasio delivering a eulogy for slain NY police police department’s Rafael Ramos on Saturday, December 27.
Reuters said that police forces from across the country “wordlessly turned away from the giant screens broadcasting the funeral at the church in Queens, New York as de Blasio took to the podium.” It said the number of police officers who did this to “thousands.”
ABC news. on the other hand, said the policemen who turned their backs while the mayor was speaking was in the hundreds.
The mayor spoke from inside the Christ the Tabernacle Church in Glendale, Queens. His speech was broadcast to thousands of uniformed policemen who were gathered outside.
“The atmosphere was mostly respectful, but there were scattered signs of protest even before the police officers’ action when the mayor spoke,” ABC news said.
The killing of NY police officer Ramos and his partner Wenjian Liu came amid heightened tensions between the police and the mayor over what some police said was the mayor’s lack of support for the forcce.
New York police officers had also shunned de Blasio when he arrived a week before at the hospital where the two police officers were declared dead.
Patrolmens Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch and de Blasio have also been locked in a public battle over treatment of officers following a grand jury’s decision declining to indict a New York police officer in the death of Eric Garner. Garner was a Staten Island man who died after he was put in a chokehold during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes.
De Blasio became controversial because of his response to demonstrations about police relations with minorities.
The week before the shooting of Ramos and Liu, PBA head Lynch suggested police officers sign a petition demanding that the mayor not attend their funerals should they die on the job.
Mayor de Blasio’s wife is black and he said he had already spoken to his mixed race teen son about how he should act if he is stopped by police.
Vice-President Joe Biden also delivered a eulogy for the police officer. Several dignitaries attended the funeral event.
The funeral turned the major avenues of Queens, New York into a “sea of blue”.
Several news reports said that the funeral was the largest so far in the city.
(Eagle News Service)