Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested on Sunday that Mayor Bill de Blasio deserved the disrespect NYPD officers showed him when they turned their backs on him at a funeral for a slain policeman.
As de Blasio was eulogizing fallen Officer Rafael Ramos on Saturday, hundreds of officers watching on TV screens outside the Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens turned their backs on the mayor.
According to Giuliani, de Blasio had brought it on himself by speaking out about the way police treated black communities.
"When I reflect on all the police officers turning their back, I don't know, I guess as an ex-mayor, I feel uncomfortable about that, you turn your back on the mayor," Giuliani explained. "On the other hand, I think at this point I have to say, he's bringing it on himself. He should have apologized."
"He should have apologized, not for the murder -- he's not responsible for the murder, he shouldn't resign, he's been elected by the people -- but he did create an atmosphere of anti-police bias and feeling for a long, long time," the former mayor continued. "It's time to say, 'Maybe I had the wrong perception of my police department. First of all, my police department is not a white police department. Everybody's a minority in the New York City Police Department.'"
Giuliani admitted that the "feeling" de Blasio had created about the NYPD had not contributed to the recent murder of two officers, but he said that the mayor had made people think that "police officers are in the main racist."
De Blasio has spoken out about how he felt that he had to give his his biracial son, Dante, special instructions about hot to behave during encounters with police because of his skin color. But Giuliani said that white children were also given the same instructions by their parents.
"We're not talking about the South in the 1960s. We're talking about guys that grew up next to an Asian kid, next to a black kid, next to a white kid. Everybody's familiar with it, we all play football with each other," Giuliani insisted. "This is not what he has allowed to be created when he made all those statements about his son."
"I've made those comments to my son. My father used to make those comments to me. If a police officer says whatever he says to you, whether he's right or wrong, do what he says."