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 Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were slain last Saturday afternoon
while sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn.
Singled out because of their uniforms, their deaths have become a
rallying point for police and their supporters around the country,
beleaguered by months of street rallies by protesters who say police
practices are marked by racism.
Stephen Davis, the police department's chief spokesman, said
Saturday's service may prove to be the largest funeral in the police
department's history, with tens of thousands of people, including
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, expected to fill the church and the
streets outside.
Draped in the New York Police Department's green, white and blue
flag, Ramos's coffin was carried into a church in his Queens
neighborhood by police officers as colleagues from his Brooklyn
station house stood saluting.
Ramos, 40, had been on the force for two years and was raising two
teenage sons with his wife, Maritza.
"Dad, I'm forever grateful for the sacrifices you made to provide
for me and Jaden," his son Justin said in an emotional voice during
a memorial service held after the wake, projected on a large screen
in the streets outside. "He was my absolute best friend."
Ramos's funeral came at the end of a week during which heated
rhetoric and blame marked a city that had largely escaped some of
the more violent outbursts seen in six months of nationwide protests
against police use of force.
In extraordinary scenes at the hospital where Liu and Ramos were
taken on Saturday, police union leaders, angered by Mayor Bill de
Blasio's qualified support of the protesters, said the mayor had
"blood on his hands". As the mayor arrived at the hospital, some
officers turned their backs to him in a pointed display of
disrespect.
Two days later, a visibly angered mayor chastised some journalists
at a news conference for what he called "divisive" coverage, while
urging activists to halt demonstrations until after the police
funerals. Activists denounced the request as suggesting they were
partly to blame for the deaths. Small groups of protesters continued
to take to the streets chanting "How do you spell murderer? NYPD"
and other anti-police chants.
The mayor, who attended Ramos' wake briefly toward the end of the
service, has said he hopes the funerals will help mend the city's
fractured mood.
A banner carried over the Hudson River behind a plane a few miles
from the wake on Friday suggested not everyone was seeking unity:
"De Blasio, Our Backs Have Turned To You," the message read, paid
for by an anonymous group of current and retired police officers,
according to police blogger John Cardillo.
Marta Mares, who said she only learned Ramos was her neighbor after
his death, arrived at the church two hours early.
"We want to support NYPD officers because now we can see what danger
they are in, especially under Mayor de Blasio," she said.
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"We love you guys," a woman shouted as Bill Bratton, the city's
police commissioner, headed into the church. TENS OF THOUSANDS
EXPECTED
Police from departments around the country, including those in St.
Louis, Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., were expected to
join national, state and city leaders for the funeral service at the
church on Saturday. Nearly 700 officers had taken up an offer
JetBlue Airways Corp <JBLU.O> to fly two members of each law
enforcement agency to New York for free, an airline spokeswoman
said.
Police had yet to announce details for the funeral of Liu, 32.
The execution-style killing was so swift, police said, that the
officers may not have seen their assailant, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, a
man described by city officials as emotionally troubled. After
shooting the officers, he shot himself and died in a nearby subway
station. He had begun the day by shooting and wounding his
ex-girlfriend in Baltimore.
Brinsley, who was black, wrote online that he wanted to kill police
officers to avenge the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown,
unarmed black men killed by white policemen in New York and
Ferguson, Missouri.
The deaths of Garner and Brown and the decisions not to prosecute
the officers responsible ignited protests across the country,
renewing a debate about race in America that has drawn in U.S.
President Barack Obama.
Relatives of Garner joined civil rights activist the Rev. Al
Sharpton on Christmas Day to say prayers for both Ramos and Liu.
(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington, Jonathan
Kaminsky in New Orleans and Mark Guarino in Chicago; Editing by
Howard Goller, Christian Plumb and Ken Wills)
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