New York paid an impressive tribute on Friday to one of two young police officers killed a week ago in Harlem.
New York paid an impressive tribute on Friday to one of the two young police officers killed a week ago in an exchange of fire in Harlem, a symbol of the rise in crime in the megalopolis that its new mayor Eric Adams wants to curb. by a more repressive policy. Thousands of people, the vast majority of whom were police officers in blue or black uniforms, massed for hours in front of and around St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, under gloomy gray skies and freezing drizzle and snowy.
At the end of a mass in honor of agent Jason Rivera, who died at the age of 22, a huge crowd along some twenty blocks of downtown Manhattan – the historic beating heart of New York – greeted in total silence the funeral procession of the deceased, surrounded by his family and police on foot and on motorcycles. “Your brother was a hero”, launched in a heavy atmosphere the mayor Eric Adams, former African-American captain of the New York police (NYPD) to hundreds of officials and relatives of Jason Rivera, very moved, during the religious office. “We are New Yorkers. I believe in this city with all my heart”, exclaimed the native city councilor of a disadvantaged district of the metropolis.
“The most difficult period in 20 years of career”
The policeman’s young widow, Dominique, just married, her voice choked with “pain and grief”, replied: “That’s exactly how he would have liked to be remembered: as a true hero. “. Outside, an anonymous policewoman also told AFP her “suffering” for her missing “friend”. Another agent saw it as a “terrible blow” dealt to the NYPD “in the most difficult period in 20 years of career”.
Jason Rivera was killed January 21 by a violent 47-year-old man in an apartment building in Harlem, after his mother called the police for help. The shooter died of his injuries on Monday and the second police officer who intervened, Wilbert Mora, 27, died on Tuesday.
The deaths of these two officers put pressure on Mayor Eric Adams. Since he took office on January 1, five police officers have been hit by firearms in the megalopolis of nearly nine million inhabitants, recalled this elected representative of the right wing of the Democratic Party, who promised to fight against insecurity.
Eric Adams has pledged more repression against the proliferation of firearms, including illegal ones: he announced on Monday the re-establishment of plainclothes police patrols, “anti-crime units” renamed “anti-firearms units” which had were removed in 2020 by former mayor Bill de Blasio, after the death of the African-American George Floyd killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.
Gun violence on the rise
These agents were feared, when Michael Bloomberg was mayor (2002-2013), for their controversial searches of young Blacks and Hispanics suspected of carrying weapons. Supporting this “anti-gun” measure and just named by Mr. Adams, the head of the NYPD, Keechant Sewell, promised to “never give up on the city” and to “always prevail” on crime.
But just after the ceremony, the mayor railed in a statement against the release on bail of a “recidivist” who had shot at police officers in the Bronx, “further proof that our system is failing” in allusion to the supposed laxity that the police accuse of justice in New York.
In addition to attacks on police officers, murders have created a great stir at the start of the year. On January 14, in Harlem, a 19-year-old Puerto Rican cashier was shot dead by a robber in a fast food restaurant. The next day, a 40-year-old Asian woman was killed by a mentally ill homeless man who pushed her onto a subway track as a train entered Times Square station.
Gun violence in New York – disproportionate to what it was 30 years ago – increased slightly in 2021 (+4.3% compared to 2020, itself up on 2019) in particular due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In a sign that Mr. Adams’ line of toughness is garnering political support, President Joe Biden is expected in New York on February 3 to talk about his strategy “to combat gun violence” across the country, according to the report. White House. In another major American city, Houston, three police officers were shot and injured during an intervention on Thursday.
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