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Crowd Drowns NYC Mayor De Blasio with Boos and Calls to Resign at Floyd Memorial
A crowd attending a George Floyd memorial in New York City didn’t show any love for the city’s liberal mayor, Bill De Blasio.
DeBlasio was immediately greeted with jeers from the crowd when he arrived at the Floyd memorial in Brooklyn on Thursday. The crowd shouted, “DeBlasio, go home” as the mayor walked across the stage the crowd. Also, he was booed incessantly when he attempted to address the crowd.
Reverend Kevin McCall introduced the Mayor and he did his best to quell the unrest. However, his pleas for respect fell on deaf ears. “Let us welcome – with respect – the mayor of New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and first lady Chirlane McCray,” McCall said. After that, they before ceding the podium to de Blasio. However, de Blasio never got a chance to speak. The crowd immediately began drowning out the mayor with loud booing. McCall then returned to the podium to reason with the crowd, “Again, again, again, we said respect! We said respect! Say it with me, respect!”
Mayor de Blasio did his best to deliver an address. However, his words were barely audible as the crowd loudly chanted, “resign!” Boos, chants, and jeers drowned out his speech almost entirely. At one point, a large segment of the crowd turned their back to the stage in protest.
Eventually, de Blasio gave up. He passed the microphone to George Floyd’s brother, Terrence Floyd, who took over the proceedings. At one point, Floyd told the assembled crowd, “I’m proud of the protest, but I’m not proud of the destruction. My brother wasn’t about that.”
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Vandalism and looting have swept through New York City’s streets. This has happened since George Floyd was killed in police custody almost two weeks ago. Mayor de Blasio, a Democrat, has drawn severe criticism for his response to the violence. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called out the mayor for dropping the ball.
On Tuesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, called de Blasio’s response to the riots “a disgrace”. Cuomo also noted that he has the power to “displace” de Blasio if he sees fit. However, he is not going to take that course of action at this time. “The NYPD and the mayor did not do their job last night,” Cuomo said, “I believe that.”
President Trump has also been highly critical of de Blasio’s handling of the riots. He told “The Brian Kilmeade Show” that New York’s disastrous response to the demonstration is symptomatic of weak liberal leadership. “You have a liberal mayor [in Minneapolis] that frankly was having a lot of trouble and you have a very liberal mayor in New York [City] too,” Trump said, ”and you notice that all of these places that have problems are not run by Republicans, they are run by liberal Democrats, so there is something into that philosophy.”
On the other hand, leaders from the Black Lives Matter protests have accused Mayor de Blasio of being too sympathetic towards what they claim is unwarranted NYPD aggression. However, De Blasio has defended the police for showing “tremendous restraint” in its response to the protests.
The NYPD has more than 38,000 active police officers on its books. However, it has struggled to contain the violence and looting that has emerged in the wake of the Floyd protests. Many believe the mayor’s half-hearted response to the unrest has contributed to the city’s disarray.
De Blasio was not a popular mayor in New York before the protests began. Although, now it seems his political career is in serious jeopardy. The mayor has drawn severe criticism from Republicans, community activists, and his own party for his response to the unrest. If de Blasio doesn’t get things under control soon, Governor Cuomo could make good on his threat to displace the mayor. If that happens, de Blasio can say goodbye to his career in politics.
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