NY Police Union to Mayor de Blasio: Stay Away from Cop Funerals

The New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), one of the city’s main police unions, is urging its members to sign a letter requesting that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito do not attend their funeral services should they be killed in the line of duty.

You can see an image of the letter below, as it appears in PDF form on the union’s website:

The campaign comes in the wake of Mayor de Blasio’s response to the grand jury decision in the Eric Garner case, in which Officer Daniel Pantaleo was not indicted in the chokehold death of the Staten Island man. The mayor has been promoting a pilot program that would put body cameras on police officers and spoke out against the “centuries of racism” that led to Garner’s killing in the days following protests across NYC.

Following those remarks, PBA president Patrick Lynch said in his own press conference that officers felt they were “thrown under the bus” by Mayor de Blasio.

The mayor and council speaker have responded to the petition with a joint statement, saying, “This is deeply disappointing. The mayor and the speaker both know better than to think this inappropriate stunt represents the views of the majority of police officers and their families.”

[h/t Gothamist]
[Photo via screengrab]

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