Rangel: Police Turning Backs on De Blasio at Funeral ‘Bad Taste’

In an appearance on CNN on Saturday, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) reacted to the gesture from New York City police officers turning their backs to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at the service held to honor slain NYPD office Rafael Ramos as show of disapproval of his rhetoric about his own police department.

“It was poor judgment, and today was such a beautiful homecoming that for those people that had bad taste or put a bad face on a terrible situation, I for one got a spirit out of that service that we should be more considerate of each other and not be pointing fingers at each other and try to improve our behavior and our communication and appreciate what we’ve got,” he said. “It’s going to be hard for me to respond to any question that would be a critique of something that has been wrong. We lost two heroes. Now is not the time to be pointing fingers but coming together to see what we can do to work better together. Because one thing is clear, while we lost two heroes, every speaker made it clear that we, too, have a short period of time on this earth to do the right thing. And it was a sad thing, but the way the New York City police were lauded by people from all over the country just made us proud to be New Yorkers and to have the New York City police department.”

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