Bernard Kerik: De Blasio, Sharpton 'Have Blood on Their Hands'
Todd Beamon
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Newsmax that Saturday's execution-style shooting of two uniformed police officers was ultimately encouraged by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Rev. Al Sharpton — and "they have blood on their hands."
"de Blasio, Sharpton and all those who encouraged this anti-cop, racist mentality all have blood on their hands," he said. "They have blood on their hands."
The two officers were shot about 3 p.m. while sitting in their marked car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn by a man identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley.
He wounded his girlfriend in a shooting in Baltimore before driving to New York and ambushing the officers, according to the New York Daily News.
Brinsley, who reportedly belonged to a gang, later killed himself on a crowded Brooklyn subway platform as police closed in on him. He bragged on his Instagram page just hours before that he wanted to kill police officers, the Daily News reports.
Investigators said that Brinsley was avenging the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown by killing the officers.
Kerik told Newsmax that the officers' deaths resulted from a climate created by de Blasio, Sharpton and other New York City officials.
"This guy's intent — based on that Instagram post — was retribution for Eric Garner and Michael Brown," he told Newsmax. "The people who encouraged these protests — you had peaceful protesters who were screaming 'kill the cops' — the so-called peaceful protesters.
"Who was encouraging these protesters? De Blasio, Sharpton and other elected officials and community leaders. They encouraged this mentality. They encouraged this behavior.
"They encouraged it — and these two cops are dead because of people like them," Kerik said. "They don't owe the cops an apology.
"An apology isn't good enough. They have blood on their hands."
Later, Kerik called for peaceful citizen demonstrations over the deaths of the officers.
"What I want to see is a day of outrage," he told Jeanine Pirro on her Fox News program. "I want to see protests for the two cops that are lying dead tonight.
"I want to see those protests."