NYC mayor Bill de Blasio gets both boos and applause as 884 new cops graduate from NYPD academy

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio faced a mix of boos and applause as he took the stage to address a graduating class of 884 newly minted NYPD recruits Monday.

The speech at Madison Square Garden comes at a tense moment between the mayor and the NYPD. Hundreds of police officers turned their backs on de Blasio at the funeral of slain officer Rafael Ramos over the weekend, a sign of continued tension after police unions pinned blame for the murders of two cops on the mayor’s support of recent protests pushing for police reform.

The unions have criticized the mayor for supporting protests in the city after a grand jury decided not to indict a NYPD officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in Staten Island. Ramos and a second officer, Wenjian Liu, were murdered Dec. 20 by a man who appeared to be angry and seeking revenge for the police-involved deaths of Garner and Ferguson teen Michael Brown.

The new graduates Monday did not follow their lead, though about a dozen members of the audience were spotted turning their backs. At one point, a heckler yelled at the mayor, “You created them!" when de Blasio spoke about police facing problems like poverty. Some applauded the heckler.
(Photos by AP/Getty)