As all law enforcement throughout the country are mourning the tragic loss of our brothers in New York, who were brutally assassinated simply for wearing the uniform, we are witnessing a huge rift between the members of the NY PBA and the Mayor of New York. This discord had been growing for months and was exacerbated by the Mayor’s public comments denouncing the NYPD, which occurred weeks before the assassination of Officer Rafael Ramos and Officer Wenjian Liu.
After the murders of these officers and even before their funerals services had been planned, I received numerous inquiries from POA members who wished to travel to New York in order to pay their respects to our fallen brothers. With the short time frame and having to travel over the Christmas holidays the POA knew this would be a financial burden for our members therefore the POA Executive Board approved partial reimbursement to those members in order to offset their travel expenses.
Enter in San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee who had heard about the number of members wishing to honor the NYPD officers and how the POA was going to assist them. On Christmas Eve Mayor Lee contacted me, expressed his condolences, and asked to meet with me immediately. When I met with the Mayor that day I was completely surprised with what he had done and what he presented to the POA. The Mayor, on his own volition, sought additional funding for our members travel expenses. The Mayor was with a prominent San Franciscan, who wished to remain anonymous, and they presented an extremely generous contribution to the POA to be used for our members to make it to New York and pay respects to Officer Ramos and Officer Liu.
This just further demonstrates the sound relationship between our Mayor and the POA. Mayor Lee’s support for the SFPD and all of public safety is clear. Our Mayor is engaged and is concerned about issues that are important to us and to the City. In short, we have a Mayor that “Gets It.
