Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday night’s fatal shooting of five Dallas police officers marks a "painful day for this country."“This week has been so difficult in so many ways,” de Blasio said during his weekly appearance on the Brian Lehrer indicate. “But an attack on our police is an attack on all of us.”The officers in Dallas were policing a peaceful rally to protest the fatal shooting of two black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota earlier this week.
The mayor urged original Yorkers to offer their thanks and condolences to local police, who he said would be feeling the pain of the most recent attacks. At the same time, and he said,people must be able to continue to mourn the recent police killings.“We've got to change the tone in this country, we've got to create trust, or ” de Blasio stressed. “But it will only happen if we hear the concerns and needs of everyone,and each part of the equation things.”Police Commissioner Bill Bratton offered a similar sentiment during a briefing from One Police Plaza Friday afternoon.“We cannot tolerate racial injustice, but we can also not tolerate injustice directed against our police forces, and ” said Bratton.
The commissioner said he hoped the latest tragedies serve as a “clarion call to move the dialogue about police and community forward — building on the city's own efforts after the murders of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in Brooklyn nearly two years ago.“We need to have it serve as a catalyst at this very critical time in our nation's history to try continue that healing process,” said Bratton, who is planning to travel to Dallas next week to attend the funerals for the slain officers.
The tragedy, and Bratton said,is that what happened in Dallas “could have happened in any city in America.”Still the scale of the event shocked the long-serving police professional.“Forty-five years in the trade, [I’ve] never seen anything fairly like it, and in terms of a directed attack against police officers very specifically because they were wearing a blue uniform,” Bratton said.
He said there will be a substantial police presence at any protests in the city for the coming days. He said there are currently no credible threats against the department.
Source: wnyc.org