The New York Times editorial board took the NYPD to task Monday in a biting editorial aimed at the officers who chose to turn their backs on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during the funeral of Rafael Ramos on Saturday.
"Mr. de Blasio isn’t going to say it, but somebody has to: With these acts of passive-aggressive contempt and self-pity, many New York police officers, led by their union, are squandering the department’s credibility, defacing its reputation, shredding its hard-earned respect," the board wrote, later calling the back-turning "disgraceful acts" that will be "compounded" if repeated at Liu's funeral. "They have taken the most grave and solemn of civic moments -- a funeral of a fallen colleague -- and hijacked it for their own petty look-at-us gesture."
While The Times did acknowledge the difficulties and dangers facing many officers, the editorial board could not let the Police Department off the hook.
"None of those grievances can justify the snarling sense of victimhood that seems to be motivating the anti-de Blasio campaign -- the belief that the department is never wrong, that it never needs redirection or reform, only reverence," the board wrote.
Though not as critical as the Times' editorial board, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton also criticized the officers' protest. Speaking to CBS on Sunday, Bratton said the back-turning was "inappropriate."
"I certainly don't support that action," he said.
Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, were murdered by gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley in Brooklyn on Dec. 20.
Read the full editorial over at the New York Times.