New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio faces his biggest test yet after the killing of two police officers. The long-simmering tensions between de Blasio and the police department he has pledged to reshape have reached an extraordinary nadir, says the New York Times. Officers, led by union leaders, turned their backs on the mayor and Commissioner William Bratton on Saturday night as the two walked through a hospital to address the public about the deaths. Patrick Lynch, president of the largest police union, blamed de Blasio for the tragedy. The officers' blood “starts on the steps of City Hall,” he said, “in the office of the mayor.”
Before the shooting, union leaders had circulated a letter allowing officers to request that the mayor not attend their funerals in the event of their death in the line of duty. Since de Blasio's crusade on the campaign trail against what he viewed as overreaching by the police in the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, those close to de Blasio have said that securing the trust of officers was an essential, complicated task. “This is a nightmare of the highest magnitude for everyone,” said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani blamed President Obama for “four months of propaganda … that everybody should hate the police.”