Killings expose rift between New York mayor, police

New York's police commissioner sought Monday to ease a damaging rift between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the largest police force in the United States in the wake of the murder of two officers.
Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, were shot in the head through the window of their patrol car in broad daylight in Brooklyn on Saturday following weeks of anti-police protests.
Police named the shooter as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, who fled to a nearby subway station and shot himself dead on the platform.
Officers described Brinsley as an extremely disturbed individual with a clear anti-police bias.
Some police lashed out at de Blasio, accusing him of creating a dangerous mood by allowing demonstrators to shut down New York streets in protest at recent police killings of unarmed black men.
New York and other major cities across the United States have seen weeks of protests over the killings and grand jury decisions not to prosecute the white officers responsible.
De Blasio, who has biracial children, has been criticized for allegedly not being sympathetic enough to the problems police face in fighting crime and too sympathetic to protesters.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton went on NBC's flagship Today show Monday to admit that de Blasio had lost the trust of some officers, but defended the mayor against the avalanche of critism.
"I think he has lost it with some officers," Bratton said, going so far as to say the last time he remembered such tension in New York was in 1970.
- Partisan lines -
But he criticized police officers who turned their backs on the mayor at the hospital where the two cops were pronounced dead.
"I don't support that particular activity, I don't think it was appropriate, particularly in that setting but it's reflective of the anger of some of them," Bratton said.
He told NBC that he doesn't believe "at all" that de Blasio increased the threat to police officers by allegedly not expressing enough sympathy for them by siding with demonstrators.
He welcomed an extra $400 million in the budget that had been set aside to improve police training, facilities and to acquire new technology that would equip every officer with a smart phone.
Former New York governor George Pataki and former mayor Rudy Giuliani, both Republicans, have been among the most critical of de Blasio and US President Barack Obama, both Democrats.
"It's starting to shape up along partisan lines, which is unfortunate," Bratton said.
De Blasio was last seen in public attending a mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on Sunday accompanied by his wife and Bratton.
On Monday, his office announced that he would deliver remarks on "strengthening the bond between police and the community" at a police lunch at 1:15 pm (1815 GMT.)
Perhaps in an effort to calm the situation, NYPD unions decided Monday not to comment on the situation until further notice.
- 'Three months of anti-police hatred' -
A representative for Ed Mullins, president of the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association, said he would not be available for interviews "until further notice."
Giuliani criticized de Blasio for allowing protesters to shut down mayor streets in New York and for participating in "hate speech" against police in the last two or three months.
"Let's give the police a break. This has been three months of anti-police hatred, rhetoric, anger," he told CNN.
"I don't hold the mayor responsible for deaths, but three to four weeks ago I'm telling people a cop is going to get shot here.
"They were yelling it in the streets. The mayor was allowing them to take the streets. When I was the mayor, nobody took my streets."
Amid fears of copycat attacks, patrols by a volunteer auxiliary police -- a uniformed but unarmed force -- have been reportedly suspended temporarily for the first time since the 1970s.
On Sunday, an intruder was charged with assault after reportedly pushing his way into a police station in Harlem and attacking two officers -- one of whom needed medical attention.
Other threats were phoned into a police station in Staten Island, where black father of six Eric Garner died after being held in a police chokehold in July, and made on Facebook.
The New York Post also reported that police cars were sabotaged in The Bronx and that a Bronx teenager pulled the trigger of his gun at officers after emptying the weapon shooting out windows.