Killing of New York Police Officers Tests Promise of ‘One City’

First, the grieving. The horrifying killings of two police officers in Brooklyn on Saturday shock the soul of the city and require us all to stop to honor the dead, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Police Commissioner William Bratton, looking stricken at a news conference at Woodhull Hospital, reminded us that behind each blue uniform is a family. Officer Liu was newly married. Officer Ramos had a wife and 13-year-old son. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the officers’ deaths “an attack on everything we hold dear.”

Next, the reckoning: The attacker, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, apparently said he was driven to assassination as retaliation for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. There is no evidence that Mr. Brinsley, holder of a long criminal record who also shot a former girlfriend and killed himself, had any connection to the recent months of peaceful protests for police reform. But he linked those earlier tragedies to his hateful words and unspeakable act, fatally coloring how others will perceive it. There is no more important job ahead for Mr. de Blasio than to lead and unite the city. He cannot allow it to fracture into opposing camps of those who support outraged protesters and those who stand with aggrieved cops. Never has his “one city” promise been so urgently and so sorely tested.

The city’s divisions are already keenly felt, and on Saturday night found expression in open contempt for the mayor. Many officers silently turned their backs on Mr. de Blasio as he walked down a corridor at the hospital. Their union leaders were more explicit. “There’s blood on many hands tonight,” said Patrick Lynch, president of the officers’ union. “That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor.”

The best response to those inflammatory words is to take them as expressions of grief and shock, and to ignore Mr. Lynch’s calls for deeper hostility and suspicion. Mr. de Blasio and other city officials, along with responsible police leaders and protesters, should now summon the city to stand on common ground. No one wants to fall deeper into a grotesque cycle of grievance and vengeance, where all that grows is blindness and hate. The answer to violence is love, as reflected in a statement from the grass-roots group #BlackLivesMatter deploring the officers’ killings and calling for “a complete transformation of the ways we see and relate to one another.” 

Officers Ramos and Liu were patrolling in Brooklyn not to oppress but to serve and protect. Those who live and work in New York should unite in gratitude for their service and sacrifice, and commit themselves to a city where all feel safe. That is a movement everyone should join.