New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's relationship with NYPD cops is worsening — and his ongoing criticism of police officers "emboldens" criminals, Pat Lynch, president of the city's Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, told
Newsmax TV.
"It’s getting worse because he keeps making statements against police officers," Lynch said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"[An] atmosphere was created on the street, it went unchecked and that created an atmosphere that emboldens criminals to challenge police officers and even shoot police officers."
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Lynch said de Blasio "absolutely" fueled more tension with city cops when he lashed out at officers who turned their backs on him Sunday as he delivered a eulogy for slain cop Wenjian Liu.
Liu and his partner Rafael Ramos were shot dead as they sat in their patrol car last month by a gun-wielding madman who had promised on social media to avenge the deaths of black men by white cops. Cops also turned their backs at Ramos' funeral.
De Blasio first enraged cops by declaring that he had talked to his bi-racial son Dante about how to act in the presence of police officers following a grand jury's decision not to indict a white NYPD officer who placed a lethal chokehold on a black man selling loose cigarettes — a ruling that triggered weeks of protests.
De Blasio labeled the back-turning at Liu's funeral — an act that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton had urged them not to do — as "disrespectful."
"What [De Blasio] also did is he spends weeks, if not months, praising protestors on the street who were given a vile, deadly message unchecked," Lynch said.
"Then, when police officers respectfully send a message [by turning their backs] — not inside a church, but in the street where it belongs, not against our hero families, but against the mayor — that's wrong and disrespectful? Well, I respectfully disagree with him."
Lynch's salvo comes a day after two more city cops were shot and seriously injured as they investigated a robbery in the Bronx.
"It just goes to show the dangerous situation New York City police officers are in each and every day because of the atmosphere on the street where every interaction now turns into a challenge where the perps are emboldened to fire their weapons at police officers," Lynch said.
"And we didn't even discuss the fact that they're carrying those weapons in the first place. So here we are a short time after burying our brother, Police Officer Liu and the next day we have another shooting in the Bronx."
Lynch said police are not against demonstrations — just de Blasio's inappropriate embrace of what protestors are saying.
"We have demonstrations in the streets and we're not against demonstrations, we're a union we demonstrate ourselves and we're police officers. We police demonstration," he said.
"But the message that was on the street that went unchecked, [was] 'What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!' It went unchecked.
"It created an atmosphere in the street that's been building. We predicted, unfortunately, this was going to happen and the worst did."
Lynch believes New York's police force are passionate and dedicated public servants and in no way disrespected the families of the slain police officers
"When all others that are elected walk away and disappear, New York City police officers still remember that moment when a police officer was killed," Lynch said.
"We'll always stand by our fellow police officers … [At] rallies where the name of a police officer killed in the line of duty is announced … what happens? Police officers rise to their feet to show respect. We'll never forget and we'll never disrespect."
Lynch said de Blasio blew an opportunity "to turn down the temperature and say look, to the citizens, to the protestors to the cops, we support police officers for putting themselves at risk."
Last week, the mayor also infuriated police by reappointing a Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson who freed without bail two men who threatened police officers before Ramos and Liu were assassinated.
Lynch said de Blasio should have told New Yorkers that the city supported police "so we can't support a judge that's letting potential cop killers out on the street."
"That could have been a message there, say enough is enough, you're not thinking rationally as a judge, you won't be appointed especially in the atmosphere we are now. But he chose otherwise."
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