But de Blasio’s plea was quickly dismissed by several activist groups that vowed to continue protests that have stirred the city daily after grand juries chose not to indict police officers who killed Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
“It’s a time for everyone to put aside political debates, put aside protests, put aside all of the things we will talk about in due time,” de Blasio said in a speech to a charity with close ties to the New York Police Department, two days after Rafael Ramos, 40, and his partner, Wenjian Liu, 28, were killed.
The men were shot as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn, and their deaths electrified tensions that had been coursing for months between City Hall, the police department and the reform-minded protesters who voted for de Blasio in large numbers.
Similar protests, some of them violent, have taken place across the United States, provoking a bitter debate about how American police forces treat non-white citizens that has drawn in President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder.
Even de Blasio’s assurance on Monday that he would attend the slain officers’ funerals, normally an unquestioned mayoral duty, took on a political charge. Earlier this month, the city’s largest police union said the mayor had abandoned the police and urged members to sign a letter insisting that the mayor stay away from their funeral should they be killed while on duty.