New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio faced a tough crowd at Monday’s police graduation ceremony: He was subject to boos and catcalls as he addressed the new NYPD officers, CBS New York reports.
According to the report, when de Blasio was introduced at the Madison Square Garden ceremony for the graduating class of more than 800, some of the audience could be heard booing and jeering, although there was also applause and cheers.
“Let’s be honest about the realities of our society,” de Blasio told the graduates, according to the news station. “You’ll confront all the problems that plague our society, problems that you didn’t create.”
As he said so, a heckler shouted “You did!” to applause, CBS New York notes.
According to CBS New York, some audience members also turned their backs on the mayor.
Some New York City police officers have been giving the mayor the cold shoulder, even accusing him of being anti-police, after comments he made when a grand jury declined to indict New York City Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Eric Garner’s death, CBS notes.
The murders of two on-duty police officers in Brooklyn on Dec. 20 has only increased the anger of the police toward the mayor. According to CBS, at the weekend funeral service for slain Officer Rafael Ramos, some officers outside the church in Queens turned their backs on the video monitor showing de Blasio eulogizing Ramos inside the church.
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton denounced the gesture, saying that it was “very disrespectful” and that bringing politics into the funeral was “inappropriate.”
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has also criticized the officers’ actions, saying that they should “respect the officer,” regardless of their personal feelings toward the current mayor, but he also said that de Blasio should apologize to the Police Department for “[creating] an impression with the police that he was on the side of the protesters,” the news station reports.
“Every cop in this country thinks of him as someone who hates them,” Giuliani said.
Read more at CBS New York.