Vice President Joe Biden will join thousands of police officers Saturday for the funeral of Rafael Ramos, one of two NYPD officers who was slain in his patrol car last weekend.
Ramos, 40, was killed Dec. 20 along with Wenjian Liu, 32, while the two were sitting in their car in Brooklyn. The shooter later killed himself.
Tensions regarding law enforcement have been running high in the wake of the shooting death by police of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the choking death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y. Both men were black and unarmed. Grand juries in both cases decided against indicting the officers who killed the men, spurring protests surrounding racial inequality.
The shooter had made social media posts before killing Ramos and Liu that indicated his actions were a reprisal for the deaths of Brown and Garner.
The NYPD has also taken shots at New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for what some officers believe is a lack of support from the mayor. Several turned their backs to de Blasio in a press conference after the shooting of Ramos and Liu; on Friday, a group of retired officers flew a plane over the city with a banner that read “DE BLASIO, OUR BACKS HAVE TURNED TO YOU.”
