Washington (CNN) — Several police officials and politicians are pointing fingers at New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio after two New York City police officers were murdered on Saturday, following weeks of protests against police treatment of minorities in New York and around the country. And one is pulling the President of the United States into the fray.
The head of New York City’s police union said de Blasio has blood on his hands, and the state’s former Republican governor called out de Blasio and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Former New York City mayor and one-time Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani appeared to sympathize with de Blasio on Sunday, instead dragging in President Barack Obama.
Giuliani: Blaming mayor an ‘overreaction’“We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the President, that everybody should hate the police. I don’t care how you want to describe it, that’s what those protests are all about,” Giuliani said Sunday on Fox News.
Giuliani added on CNN that while none were responsible for the shooting, de Blasio, Holder and Obama are fueling “intense, anti-police hatred.”
“Maybe, just maybe, they should spend the next four months not talking about police hatred, but talking about what they are going to do about bringing down crime in the community,” he said, adding that it’s police officers and not Obama, Holder or any mayors who are saving lives.
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Protests broke out around the country in the wake of two separate cases in which grand juries declined to charge white police officers in the killing of two unarmed black men, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in New York City. Obama has sympathized with protesters’ frustrations, drawing on his own experiences as a black man, and urged protesters to express themselves peacefully.
Former Gov. George Pataki blamed de Blasio and Holder. And the head of NYPD’s police union, Patrick Lynch, pointed the finger at de Blasio, saying there’s blood on the hands of those supporting the protestors and it “starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.”