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 Politicians, police leaders and other mourners joined family
members inside a Brooklyn funeral home to honor Wenjian Liu, who was
killed in an ambush that led to accusations the mayor had
contributed to an anti-police climate.
Outside, the throng of officers gathered to pay their respects to
Liu stretched for nearly a mile along an avenue in the borough's
Bensonhurst neighborhood. When de Blasio began his speech, hundreds
of them turned their backs to screens showing his image, despite
earlier entreaties by City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to
mourners to show restraint.
The back-turning gesture has become symbolic of the anger many
officers feel for de Blasio over what they see as his failure to
support them during a wave of anti-police protests.
De Blasio used the eulogy to call for reconciliation and after a
wrenching year for the city.
"New York has been from its earliest days a most tolerant of cities
... but there have always been times when that harmony has been
challenged," de Blasio said at Liu's funeral, one of the largest in
NYPD history.
 "Let us rededicate ourselves to those great New York traditions of
mutual understanding and living in harmony."
Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, were ambushed and fatally shot on
Dec. 20 by a killer who said he wanted to avenge the deaths of two
unarmed black men this summer in encounters with white officers in
Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City.
Those deaths, and decisions by grand juries in November and December
to return no charges against the police officers involved, triggered
weeks of protests around the country against police treatment of
African Americans and other minorities.
The crowd that turned out to honor Liu, believed to be the New York
Police Department's first Chinese-American officer killed in the
line of duty, appeared nearly equal to the estimated 25,000 who came
to Ramos' funeral.
Liu's wife paid a tearful tribute to the officer as a devoted
husband and son. “Wenjian is my hero," said Pei Xia Chen. "We can
always count on him.”
Later, as pall bearers carried the casket draped in the NYPD flag to
the hearse, helicopters flew at low altitude over mourners in a
maneuver known as a "missing man formation," an NYPD tradition.
SILENT PROTESTS AGAINST THE MAYOR
To be sure, a majority of the officers outside the funeral home
faced toward de Blasio when he spoke, especially in the front ranks.
But further down the avenue, hundreds were seen turning away, much
like at last week's services for Ramos.
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After the ceremony, Patrick Lynch, the head of the largest police
union, said officers were going through a difficult, emotional time.
"They feel that City Hall has turned their back on them and they
have a right to have their opinion heard and they did it
respectfully in the street, not inside the church," said Lynch.
The union leader had said immediately after the ambush on Liu and
Ramos that the mayor had contributed to the political climate that
led to their deaths.
De Blasio offered qualified support for protesters after the grand
jury decision not to charge the officer involved in the chokehold
death of Eric Garner in New York. The mayor said he had talked to
his bi-racial son, Dante, about being wary in dealing with police.
Relations between the police and de Blasio had begun to fray before
that. During his 2013 campaign for office, the mayor criticized some
NYPD tactics, including a "stop-and-frisk" policy that critics said
was used to harass African-Americans and other minority groups.
Many of the tens of thousands of mourners crowded along the sidewalk
outside Sunday's services were Asian.
Caiyao Chen, 32, who emigrated from China in 2000, said he didn't
know the slain officer but he said he was particularly saddened
because Liu was his parents' only son.
"In Chinese tradition, the son carries the blood of the family," he
said. "The family is broken now."
(Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Larry King, Eric Walsh and
Frances Kerry)
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