Thousands honor slain NYPD officer

Mourners gathered inside and outside Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens on Saturday to pay their respects to slain New York City Police Officer Rafael Ramos.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and Vice President Joe Biden were among those who spoke in tribute of Ramos.

"When an assassin's bullet targeted two officers, it targeted this city and it touched the soul of an entire nation," said Biden, calling the New York Police Department the finest in the world. His words were met with applause both inside the church and out, where the ceremony was being broadcast on video screens.

Andrew Cuomo called the killings, which happened in broad daylight in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood last Saturday, "an attack on all of us."

Backs turned to the mayor

Officers outside the church turned their backs on de Blasio as he entered the church, mirroring a gesture of protest from police union president Patrick Lynch at the hospital where Ramos was brought after the shooting.

Referring to comments made by the mayor after the deaths earlier this year of two unarmed African-American men, Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York, both at the hands of white police officers, Lynch said de Blasio had contributed to a climate of mistrust surrounding the police force. Lynch said the mayor had blood on his hands, as the murders of Ramos and his partner Wenjian Liu were in retaliation for the deaths of Garner and Brown.

Despite the show of protest outside, de Blasio's comments were politely applauded inside.

"All of this city is grieving and grieving for so many reasons," de Blasio said. "But the most personal is that we've lost such a good man, and the family is in such pain."

Ramos was a married father of two. He eldest son arrived wearing his father's NYPD jacket. "What happened to my father was a tragedy," said his teenaged son Justin in a tearful eulogy. "But his death will not be in vain."

A date for Liu's funeral has not yet been set, as the family awaits the arrival of relatives from China. Ramos and Liu were the first NYPD officers killed in the line of duty since 2011.

The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore on the morning of December 20, before heading to New York. After shooting Ramos and Liu, Brinsley turned the gun on himself.

According to the estimate of NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis, the funeral was the most attended in the history of the force.

es/sb (AP, Reuters)