De Blasio, along with William Bratton, the police commissioner, stood on a stage Monday morning inside Madison Square Garden to honor the 884 cadets who were graduating from the New York Police Department’s academy. Much of the attention paid to the ceremony focused on how officers would respond to de Blasio, something that has cropped up in very high-profile ways since two police officers were gunned down in Brooklyn.
While de Blasio was given a public rebuke from some in the crowd Monday, the response was much smaller than the hundreds of officers who turned their backs while the mayor spoke during the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos on Sunday. As de Blasio rose to speak Monday, he was greeted with applause and some boos from the crowd. And about a dozen attendees stood and turned their backs to him, echoing the response at the funeral and at the hospital after the Brooklyn shooting.
De Blasio’s nine-minute address on Monday did not directly touch on this tension, focusing instead on praising the cadets for “choosing what is a noble calling.” Bratton, who said he wanted to address the cadets “cop to cop,” was greeted more warmly by the crowd.
