Yesterday's disgusting display by the NYPD — in which hundreds of officers turned their backs upon Mayor Bill de Blasio as he spoke at the funeral of Rafael Ramos — elicited appropriate expressions of outrage across the country.
Below are a few culled from Twitter which perfectly represent why what the NYPD did was so difficult to swallow.
The first, from which the title of this post comes, is from Matt Binder, and expresses perfectly how the NYPD didn't just disrespect de Blasio, but a grieving Ramos family:
The second, from
Andrew Exum, hits upon the level of insubordination seen by armed officers (NYPD) which would never be displayed by military in this country:
The third, from
Zellie Imani, exposes the hypocrisy of NYPD officers whining that anti-police-violence protests should cease due to the deaths of cops as they protest
at the funeral for one of their own:
The last,
my own thought, highlights the anti-democratic nature of NYPD calls for de Blasio's head — a man who won with 73 percent of the vote on a platform of police reform:
These expressions are just a drop in the bucket representing different streams of outrage for what NYPD officers did yesterday at Ramos' funeral.
It was a short moment. But a deeply symbolic one for a police force demanding, essentially, one thing: to not be held to account for its abuses of power.
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David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, recently published by Oneworld Publications.