Obama, Holder, and DeBlasio are responsible for fomenting violence against police

As reported by the New York Times:

[Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the black man who today assassinated two New York City Police Officers as they sat in their patrol car, had] made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases. ... The double killing comes at a moment when protests over police tactics have roiled the city and other parts of the nation. ... [Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently had] spoken of his personal experience instructing his biracial son, Dante, to “take special care” during any police encounters. Some union leaders suggested the mayor had sent a message that police officers were to be feared. ... The killing seemed to drive the wedge between Mr. de Blasio and rank-and-file officers even deeper. Video posted online showed dozens of officers turning their backs to the mayor as he walked into a news conference on Saturday evening. “There’s blood on many hands tonight — those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protests, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did every day,” the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, said outside Woodhull Hospital. He added, “That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor.”

Mayor de Blasio is, of course, not the only Democratic leader who has suggested that the police are not to be trusted. In recent weeks, President Obama and Attorney General Holder have themselves spoken of the "breakdown in trust between the police and communities of color" and expressed sympathy for the fact that blacks feel "frustrated and disappointed" by the grand jury decisions in the Garner and Brown cases. To quote President Obama:

Obviously, how we're thinking about race relations right now has been colored by Ferguson, the [Eric] Garner case in New York, a growing awareness in the broader population of what many communities of color have understood for some time. And that is that, there's specific instances at least where -- where law enforcement doesn't feel as if it's being applied in a colorblind fashion.

The effect of the words of these three Democrats has been to suggest that the mistrust, frustration, and disappointment that blacks feel are warranted and to imply that the police (and the grand juries that have refused to indict them) are racists and behaving unjustly. But, if the black President and Attorney General of the United Staes and the Mayor of New York who has a biracial son suggest that the police, the enforcers of the law, are racists and behaving unjustly, why should we be surprised if blacks like Ismaaiyl Brinsley somehow feel they are justified in retaliating against the police?

As I have written before, instead of discouraging violence, the irresponsible utterances of Obama, Holder, and DeBlasio only foment it. As Patrick Lynch suggests, Obama, Holder, and de Blasio have some soul searching to do. They need to ask themselves to what extent they bear some responsibility for the murder of these two police officers and for the intensifying alienation between police officers and blacks across the country.