New York City mayor Bill de Blasio faced sporadic heckling and booing as he spoke to hundreds of New York City’s newest police officers during a sombre Police Academy graduation ceremony at Madison Square Garden on Monday.
De Blasio applauded the nearly 900 new police recruits, thanking them for choosing what he called a noble calling and highlighting their ability to be peacemakers during a turbulent chapter in the city’s history.
“You will confront all the problems that plague our society,” de Blasio told the crowd. “Problems that you didn’t create.”
To this, an audience member yelled back: “You did!”
Many in the audience, which included hundreds of serving officers, applauded the heckle but the recruits stayed silent, staring straight at the mayor.
“You’ll confront poverty, you’ll confront mental illness, illegal guns and a still too divided society. All of these challenges. You didn’t create these problems but you can help our city to overcome them,” de Blasio said.
The fatal shooting of two NYPD police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in Brooklyn last week has strained already fraught relations between the city’s mayor and its police. Many officers resent remarks by the mayor that are perceived to have been made in support of recent protests over police killings of unarmed black men in New York and elsewhere.
As De Blasio continued, a few people in the crowd turned their backs, just as officers did outside Ramos’s funeral in Queens on Saturday. But the protests on Monday were tiny in comparison.
Photographs of Liu and Ramos were projected on to the arena’s giant TV screens as graduating officers looked up and saluted instead of throwing their white gloves into the air, as is tradition at graduation.
NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton told the crowd he wanted to talk to the new officers “cop to cop”. Though he carries a civilian title, Bratton said that “in my heart, in my soul, I always will be a cop”.
Bratton spoke about his time as an officer with the Boston Police Department, saying that then, like now, the country faced mounting tensions between police and the communities they serve.
“We are at a very difficult time at this time in this country, in this city, in this department,” he said. “But we will work forward through it. We always do.”
His speech drew strong applause from the crowd.
Speaking last, the class valedictorian acknowledged that this was a tender moment to be joining the force.
“The past six months have been like no other period for the NYPD in recent memory,” James A Fuchs said.
“We have watched tragedies unfold and national unrest envelop the profession we have chosen. It would have been easy to quit but we are sitting here today because we are determined to serve and protect this city we believe in the positive interactions we will have on a daily basis and we know that we have the integrity required to wear this honorable uniform.”
The graduating officers were closely flanked by NYPD press minders, who attempted to steer away questions about ongoing city politics.
“Any time is probably a tough time to start as a police officer brand new, especially when you don’t know what you’re going to be going into out there,” said 22-year-old William Sutton from Orange County, who graduated with the award for exceptional police duty. “But for the most part I think everything with community will eventually work out… working with community, that’s the most important thing.”
The ceremony began with a “heroes video” which showed images of officers patrolling subways, wearing bomb disposal suits and packing rifles.
“Heroes, always heros,” the narration said over the soundtrack to Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator. “We are the NYPD.”
A moment’s silence for Liu and Ramos followed shortly after.
“I believe someone has got to do the job. I’m here to help. That’s it,” said Julian Morales a 27-year-old graduate who has served four years in the military. Asked by the Guardian what he thought of the heckles from the crowd Morales replied: “I’m not commenting on that.”
