For the first time in over a month, Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared Monday alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton, who's been accused by some police unions of helping fuel anti-NYPD sentiment. Both he and the mayor did their best to counter that idea. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed this report.
One element missing from the recent, ongoing feud between the mayor and police unions has been the Rev. Al Sharpton, never a popular figure in police circles. But on Monday, the two again appeared together, with Sharpton emphatic that being for police reform does not mean being anti-police.
"Dr. King would want, in the spirit of justice, for us to underscore that justice does not mean anything near being anti-police, less killing police. So we want to set that tone," Sharpton said.
To that end, Sharpton—joined by dozens of supporters from his National Action Network— later visited the site where two officers were gunned down last month, bringing wreaths to the scene.
"Dr. King did not tolerate hate speech," de Blasio said.
De Blasio, meanwhile, as he has repeatedly in recent days, continued to denounce anti-police rhetoric on the part of protesters.
"I think it's up to all of us to say to those who purport, who purport to want change—if you're saying something vicious and vile to a police officer you're not making change, you're not moving us forward," de Blasio said.
One of a host of top elected officials who took part in Monday's event—including Governor Andrew Cuomo, who called in—de Blasio also touted the continued drop in crime, even as stop-and-frisks and marijuana arrests also decline. Seemingly appealing to the police unions, Sharpton spoke of returning to a sense of civility.
"This kind of name-calling and ugliness is something that we should never continue in this city. We've gotten out of it before and there's been a relapse," Sharpton said.
While Sharpton later led a vigil here on Staten Island at the site of Eric Garner's death, Mayor de Blasio was off to Paris, where he he'll appear at a series of events Tuesday, including one with the Paris mayor to commemorate the victims of the recent terror attacks.