Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and county Police Benevolent Association President James Carver both lamented the shooting deaths of two New York City police officers in Brooklyn on Saturday and offered condolences to the slain patrolmen’s families.
“The thoughts and prayers of my wife Linda and I are with the NYPD officers and their families,” Mangano said in a statement issued through his Twitter page on Saturday evening. “Today’s shooting is a tragedy.”
Carver in a statement Sunday called the shooting a “horrendous and horrific act,” saying, “This kind of violence against our police officers cannot be tolerated or forgotten across the nation.”
He went on to express support of statements made by Patrick Lynch, the president of the NYPD’s Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, who blamed the deaths of officers Wen Jian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, on anti-police sentiment stemming from recent protests against a recent grand jury decision to clear a police officer of criminality in causing the death of an unarmed black man in Staten Island.
Lynch told reporters outside Woodhull Hospital Saturday night that “There’s blood on many hands tonight – those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protests, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did every day. That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor.”
Carver said the Nassau County PBA “support[s]” Lynch “in his condemnation for [New York City] Mayor [Bill] de Blasio’s anti-police statements,” adding “No elected official should not fully support the men and women that serve to protect our citizens every day.”
Liu and Ramos were gunned down in their patrol car on Saturday afternoon while stopped outside housing projects near Myrtle and Tompkins avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, city police officials said.
The shooting suspect, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, of Brooklyn, allegedly approached to the passenger side of their vehicle at around 2 p.m. and fired shots into the car at the officers’ heads and upper bodies, police said.
Officers then pursued Brinsley as he fled to a nearby subway station and fatally shot himself on a train platform, police said.
Brinsley allegedly made threats against police officers in since-deleted social media posts in which he said he planned to avenge the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, black men whose deaths were caused by white police officers who were later cleared of criminality by grand juries in Ferguson, Mo. and Staten Island, inciting nationwide protests.
“I’m putting wings on a pig today. They take 1 of ours…..Let’s take 2 of theirs #ShootThePolice #RIPErivGardner [sic] #RIPMikeBrown This may be my final post, I’m putting pigs in a blanket,” Brinsley allegedly wrote in a caption of an Instagram photograph of a handgun that police said matched a handgun removed from Brinsley’s person at the subway station.
According to reports, Brinsley had an extensive criminal history was wanted in Baltimore for shooting a former girlfriend earlier in the day.
Police later said law enforcement in Maryland tried to notify police in New York that Brinsley was potentially violent and traveling to New York, but the message was received at around the time of the shootings.
“Today, two of New York’s finest were shot and killed with no warning, no provocation,” NYPD Commissioner William J. Bratton told reporters Saturday at Woodhull Hospital in Williamsburg, where the two officers and Brinsley were taken following the incidents.
“They were, quite simply, assassinated – targeted for their uniform and for the responsibility they embraced to keep the people of this city safe,” he added.
In an expanded Twitter post Sunday, Mangano said he “stands in solidarity with the brave men and women of law enforcement throughout this nation.”
He said he has ordered that all Nassau County buildings fly flags at half staff for one week.
“May God watch over the families of officers Wen Jian Liu and Rafael Ramos as well as all those who keep our cities, communities and nation safe,” he said.
Kenneth Lack, a spokesman for the Nassau County Police Department, said in a statement that the department “is taking the appropriate precautions” in wake of the shootings.
President Obama, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and de Blasio were among the elected officials who also offered condolences to Liu and Ramos’ families.
The Silver Shield Foundation, an organization founded by late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to finance the education of police officers and their families, will pay for the college tuition of Ramos’ 13-year-old son Jaden and another son who is currently in college, according to a New York Daily News report.
Liu was recently married and had no children, according to the Daily News report.
“When a police officer is murdered, it tears at the foundation of our society,” de Blasio said during a news conference Saturday night at Woodhull Hospital. “It is an attack on all of us. It’s an attack on everything we hold dear.”
According to published reports, NYPD officers turned their backs to de Blasio as he entered the hospital in an apparent act of defiance for sympathizing with protestors who held marches and demonstrations throughout the city in wake of the Dec. 4 grand jury decision not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo in criminal connection with Garner’s death in Staten Island.
Video was taken and uploaded to YouTube purportedly showing Pantaleo putting Garner in a chokehold while other officers held down Garner, who officers alleged was resisting arrest for selling loose cigarettes.
de Blasio later said he was “astonished by the [grand jury’s] decision” and called it a “very painful day for so many New Yorkers.”
Following the start of protests, officers began circulating a petition requesting de Blasio not attend the funerals of cops killed in the line of duty due to his lack of support for police in the aftermath of the decision.
A petition calling for de Blasio’s resignation was formed Saturday on the website MoveOn.org.
