The blue thread frays

Turning their backs on HizzonerISMAAIYL BRINSLEY vowed on social media to put 'wings on pigs'. Furious at the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, two African-Americans who died in 2014 at the hands of white policemen, he took a gun and shot dead Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, a Hispanic cop and his Chinese-American partner, as they ate lunch in a patrol car in Brooklyn on December 20th.Mr Brinsley appears to have been deranged. (He killed himself before he could be arrested.) However, many police officers in New York think his actions were inspired by the anti-cop protests that have swept the Big Apple (and several other American cities) in recent weeks. That poses problems for Bill de Blasio, the mayor, as he ends his first year in office.Thousands of New Yorkers took to the streets to decry a grand jury's decision in December not to indict the cop who choked Garner, a street vendor of untaxed cigarettes, to death. The protesters were largely peaceful, but a few were not, and some chanted: 'What do we want' Dead cops! When do we want it' Now!'Cops feel besieged, and they doubt that Mr de...Continue reading
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