NYC Mayor De Blasio: Police Were Disrespectful To Turn Backs...."Those individuals who took certain actions the last two weeks, they were disrespectful to the families involved. That's the bottom line,"...SHOULD THE COPS BE FIRED?

AP  |  By JONATHAN LEMIRE Posted: 01/05/2015 8:20 pm EST 

NEW YORK (AP) — Mayor Bill de Blasio, his administration threatened to be overwhelmed by a rift with rank-and-file New York Police Department officers, on Monday condemned the thousands of cops who turned their backs to him during a pair of funerals for slain police officers.

NYC Mayor de Blasio

In his first public remarks on the officers' protests, de Blasio said the cops' searing rebuke was hurtful to the families of the two officers killed in an ambush last month and was an offense to the city at large.

"Those individuals who took certain actions the last two weeks, they were disrespectful to the families involved. That's the bottom line," de Blasio said at a news conference held at police headquarters. "I can't understand why anyone would do such a thing in the context like that." De Blasio has faced public police protests four times since the brazen daytime ambush on Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu: at the hospital where their bodies were taken, at a NYPD graduation ceremony and when he delivered eulogies at both officers' funerals.

He has stayed silent on the matter for two weeks, not making himself available for reporters' questions even as declining arrest numbers have raised concerns about a possible NYPD work slowdown. But on Monday he responded during a carefully choreographed news conference with Police Commissioner William Bratton that touted the city's record low crime levels but also was clearly intended as a public display of support from City Hall to the NYPD. Bratton continued to back de Blasio during his widening rift with the rank and file, saying he was "very disappointed" in the officers who did not honor his request to refrain from protesting at Liu's funeral on Sunday. more