海角大神

On Saturday,聽two New York City Police officers were shot and killed while sitting in their patrol car聽by a man who who apparently had traveled to New York for express purpose of killing police in revenge for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown:

Even as the news about the shootings was still just being developed yesterday, reports began to spread that the shootings were something more than just a normal police shooting, to the extent that there is such a thing, and was related, at least in the gunman鈥檚 mind, to the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown and the protests that have been going on, on a nearly daily basis, in various parts of New York City in the month since the grand jury announced that there would be no indictment in the Garner case, which followed a similar announcement out of Missouri in the Michael Brown case. What seems apparent, though, is that the killer in this case,聽Ismaaiyl Brinsley, is a man with a long criminal record who seems to have latched on to the Garner and Brown cases opportunistically:聽

The Instagram 聽account in question can no longer be accessed, which is typical in these situations, but it wasn鈥檛 long after the shootings that聽links to the last two postings had gone viral,聽and their links to the shooting were quite apparent as more details were released:

While police in New York have not acknowledged a link between these two posts and the shooting, the gun depicted in the first post does match the description of the silver pistol that was recovered from the body of the shooter after he had shot himself, and the pants depicted in the second photo match those of the body photographed being removed from the subway station near the scene where the gunman is known to have killed himself. Additionally, as noted above, police in Baltimore did send an alert to New York after family members of the shooter鈥檚 girlfriend had noticed the Instagram postings. Unfortunately, the alert came too late, arriving just moments before Brinsley opened fire on the two officers while they were apparently doing nothing more than eating lunch in their car. Overnight, the families of聽Eric Garner聽and聽Michael Brown聽both issued statements of sympathy for victims of the shooting and denounced those who would purport to commit violence in the names of their loved ones. Protesters in New York, who continue to gather on an almost nightly basis to protest the outcome in the Garner matter, also expressed sympathy for victims of the shootings, and the entire NYPD just seemed to be in a state of shock. Perhaps most important for New York City, though, is the fact that the shooting comes at聽a time of extraordinary tension with city leaders in general and Mayor Bill DeBlasio in particular:

As is often the case, much of what鈥檚 going on here between the police unions and the mayor鈥檚 office is political in nature. It鈥檚 something anyone who has observed New York City politics, or indeed the politics of any big city, in the past would be readily familiar with. To groups like the Patrolmen鈥檚 Benevolent Association (PBA), as well as others who are sympathetic to the police, anything other than absolute loyalty to the police department is a betrayal, and DeBlasio crossed that line when he expressed, at least, the slightest degree of sympathy for the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who were outraged over the fact that the Staten Island grand jury had refused to indict any of the officers involved in the death of Eric Garner, notwithstanding a video that seems to show, at least to the layman, clear evidence of at least probable cause for a case of the excessive use of force for what was, in the end, a relatively minor offense. Indeed, it isn鈥檛 even clear from the available evidence that Garner was committing any offense at all at the time the police began questioning him. In any event, DeBlasio didn鈥檛 completely side with the police in the immediate wake of the Garner decision and this appears to be the basis for the near constant denunciations that have come his way from the police unions in the weeks since then, as well as the efforts of some PBA officials to get patrolmen to sign statements saying that they would not want the mayor at their funerals, as is the custom, should they die in the line of duty. To some extent, part of this can be blamed on the fact that DeBlasio does not appear to have the same relationship with the police that previous mayors have had, especially Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Additionally, his opposition to policies such as 鈥渟top and frisk鈥� and the efforts to bring that practice to an end has not gone over well with the NYPD rank and file. Once the Garner protests started and DeBlasio expressed at least some sympathy for the people in the streets, there was already enough bad blood between the NYPD. Now, with union officials openly saying that the mayor has 鈥渂lood on his hands鈥� and officers showing open disrespect to him, it only appears as if it鈥檚 going to get worse. Given that New York City is the largest city in the country, this kind of tension between the police and the political leadership is bound make waves in the future.

Let鈥檚 be clear about one thing, though, the idea that Mayor DeBlasio has 鈥渂lood on his hands鈥� in connection with the murders of Officers Ramos and Liu is utterly absurd. There is only one person who is responsible for the deaths of those two men, and he shot himself in the head on a subway platform shortly after he murdered them. Politically, DeBlasio may or may not have bungled his relationship with the NYPD during his first year in office, but that hardly makes him responsible for murder. Additionally, the fact that the mayor may have expressed some sympathy for the people who were protesting the Garner decision is neither outrageous nor inappropriate. For one thing, it鈥檚 worth noting that he is the mayor of all the people in New York, not just the police officers, and that, as the elected leader of the city, it is his job, in part, to be responsive to the concerns of civilians who see what they think is an injustice being committed by the police department and the justice system. The argument that being willing to listen to those protesters makes any political leader responsible for the actions of a violent criminal thug who traveled some 200 miles for the express purpose of committing murder is nonsense that ought to be rejected out of hand. As聽Nick Gillespie聽notes, though, the effort to blame others for what happened in Brooklyn is not new:

Unfortunately, I can already see from much of the online reaction to Saturday's tragedy that meaningful debate is the exact opposite of what is likely to occur. Much like the Brown shooting and the Garner death, and the grand jury proceedings that occurred in their wake quickly became politicized, the deaths of these two officers shot in cold blood will be exploited by people with their own political and power agendas. It is, sadly, the way things work in this country.

Before that starts, though, I hope that someone stops to remember the families of these two men, as well as the tens of thousands of members of the NYPD and other officers around the country who will be impacted by this horrible tragedy. They didn鈥檛 deserve to die, and they don鈥檛 deserve to be turned into political symbols either.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.