Instead of turning their backs again on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, police saluted the mayor as he arrived Saturday at the wake for one of two officers slain last month.
The show of respect, reported Reuters, marks a positive turn in recent tensions between de Blasio and New York police.
De Blasio arrived in Brooklyn on Saturday with New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to pay respects to Wenjian Liu, who was shot and killed Dec. 20, along with another officer, Rafael Ramos, while the two men sat in their patrol car.
The shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, said he killed the officers to avenge the death of Eric Garner, an African-American man who died after a New York police officer put him in a chokehold. Garner’s death sparked widespread protests.
The head of the police union, Patrick Lynch, accused the mayor after Ramos’s and Liu’s death of having “blood on his hands,” and at Ramos’s funeral last month, NYPD officers turned their backs on de Blasio as he entered.
But Bratton urged a more respectful reception Saturday.
“A hero’s funeral is about grieving, not grievance,” Bratton wrote in a memo read to officers earlier Saturday. “I issue no mandates, and I make no threats of discipline, but I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that go with it.”
