Video footage shows Robert Williams walking into the 41st Precinct in the Bronx on Sunday morning and opening fire — wounding one cop in what Mayor Bill de Blasio rightly calls “an attempt to assassinate police officers.” He’s also the prime suspect in another assassination attempt the night before, when a bullet just missed the carotid artery of a cop sitting in a marked NYPD van.
This, as Police Commissioner Dermot Shea pointed out, is what comes of extreme anti-cop rhetoric. While both officers should recover fully, it’s “by the grace of God that we’re not planning a funeral.”
Shea pointed to the recent mass “Decolonize This Place” protests, which supposedly aimed at a police-free subway system but were full of “F - - - cops” chants and graffiti.
And of course this follows a summer that brought a wave of assaults on cops that involved tossing water and actual buckets at officers. It’s also become all-too-common for officers simply making an arrest to be surrounded by angry, name-calling crowds.
This, in a city where police use of force is at all-time lows.
As Shea also noted, a prior wave of anti-police demonstrations, after the 2014 Eric Garner tragedy, was followed by the assassination of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. “Just remember these things are not unrelated,” Shea warned. “We have people marching in New York City last week and I condemned it and I condemn it right here again today — using profanities against the Police Department.
“Everyone should be speaking out against this, and you have to be careful about the words you use whether it’s on social media or on written papers or speaking because words matter and words affect people’s behavior. And here we have New York City police officers, twice in 12 hours, targeted.”
That the 2014 assassin was a madman from out of town, while the accused today seems simply to be a local career criminal, makes no difference: Violent rhetoric, and mass disrespect for police, is all too likely to beget uncontrolled violence against men and women who are dedicated to keeping this city safe.
“Grow the hell up,” we wrote of the “decolonize” protesters. With this latest taste of what their extremism can bring, let’s hope they and all the other cop-haters learn to rein it in.