Fox News host Bill O'Reilly says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has lost the backing of his police department and should resign immediately.
The furor over the New York City mayor follows the execution of two NYPD officers in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon by a man who said he was going to avenge the deaths of Eric Garner, who died while being taken into custody by police on Staten Island, and Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
"He has disgraced the office of mayor of New York City," O'Reilly declared. "He should resign."
O'Reilly is not alone. Former NYPD officer and Republican congressional candidate Dan Bongino said de Blasio should "resign in disgrace." Former NYPD Detective Bo Dietl also called on be Blasio to step down.
A petition circulating on the Internet, calling for de Blasio to resign, has collected more than 50,000 signatures.
Evidence has mounted in support of calls for the mayor's resignation:
1. He infuriated police when he referred to seven protesters who assaulted two police lieutenants on the Brooklyn Bridge as "alleged" attackers even though the actions were clearly shown on video, while praising the "peaceful" protesters.
2. De Blasio has so alienated police that when he showed up at a hospital on Saturday where the two slain officers had been taken, a line of police officers turned their backs on him in protest.
3. Even before the two officers were slain, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch had suggested that officers sign a petition barring de Blasio from attending their funerals should they die in the line of duty.
4. Lynch's call came in response to de Blasio's disclosure that he had warned his biracial son Dante to be wary of police, saying he worried about Dante's safety around cops because he is a young man "of color."
5. Lynch said de Blasio has created a climate of mistrust that allowed the killing of the two officers to occur.
6. A prominent black pastor in Harlem, the Rev. Calvin Butts, charged that de Blasio is "not showing the leadership that a city like New York needs."
7. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said de Blasio has perpetuated the notion that the NYPD is racist. He also said the mayor waited too long before urging people protesting Garner's death, and the grand jury decision not to indict a police officer, to stop shouting that they wanted "dead cops."
8. Giuliani also criticized de Blasio's handling of recent anti-police protests, specifically his tolerance of the protesters' habit of choosing whatever route they liked for their demonstrations regardless of the city's needs.
9. Sergeants Benevolent Associates head Edward Mullins said "the mayor has turned his back on us — he got elected on his campaign of attacking the police all along."
10. Former New York City Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik said de Blasio has created an environment of violence in the city. Police "feel that the mayor has abandoned them, called them racist, said publicly that they target the minority community, they harass people that don't need to be harassed," Kerik said. "This type of rhetoric has created this anti-cop, racist rhetoric, which is a lie."
11. Former FBI Assistant Director Ron Hosko said de Blasio's actions are a classic case study in how not to deal with the police department.
12. Heather MacDonald wrote in The Wall Street Journal that de Blasio's rejection of "stop-and-frisk" police tactics has hamstrung the NYPD and provoked resentment. She also charged in October that the mayor's "alliance with the racial provocateur [Al Sharpton] is now creating the biggest crisis of his mayoralty."
13. De Blasio appeared to side with Michael Brown, a black teenager who was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. De Blasio said the incident is a reflection of "centuries of racism," adding that 'we've lost so many young men of color, young men who should still be alive and with us today."