Two New York City Cops Are Killed; Our Local Bishop Speaks

Just over two weeks ago, we posted commentary here [directly below] on the grand jury decisions in the Ferguson and Staten Island police brutality cases not to indict the police officers who killed two presumed criminals they were trying to arrest.  The demonstrations against the police have continued since then, mostly in New York, but also in other cities.  It all came to a head this past Saturday afternoon when a man drove from Baltimore to Brooklyn and proceeded to shoot to death two cops sitting in their patrol car.

We were thinking perhaps that our blog post, in which we advocate efforts to offer preventive help to, and lift up, people in low-income, high-crime areas, skipped too many steps or missed the point of the demonstrations altogether.  They were, after all, anti-police demonstrations, not necessarily outbursts from demoralized people about their own seemingly powerless states of life.

Whatever the real goal, the situation got way out of hand and led to the deaths of two ordinary cops doing a routine patrol job on a Saturday afternoon.  They were not taking any actions and, as it happens, they weren't even white.  One, named Wenjian Liu, is the son of immigrant parents from China.  The other, Rafael Ramos, is Hispanic.  Officer Ramos was hardly a violent man; he was due to graduate later that very afternoon from a program that trains lay chaplains for public service in crisis times just such as this.

Feelings are heavy today in Brooklyn.  The 84^th Precinct, the officers' station, is our local precinct, the station house four blocks down the street from where we live.  We just now returned from adding some flowers to a growing collection at the front door of the building.

Brooklyn is in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.  Our Bishop, Lawrence Provenzano, happened to have been in Brooklyn yesterday, making a long-scheduled visit at a parish in a neighborhood not far away.  Afterward, he visited the scene of the shooting at Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant and talked to local police and to the people of that community.  Then when he got home last night, he wrote to the clergy of the Diocese; the letter is posted on the Diocese website.  His own pain is palpable and he urges a second look.  Listen to some of what he says.

At Myrtle and Tompkins, I stood and talked with police officers, people on the street and residents standing on stoops or in the doorways of the Tompkins Houses. The police officers talked about their fears and those of their families. They talked about being accustomed to dealing with critical situations - homicides, rapes, domestic disturbance, robberies, but not being able to rationally deal with "their own" being murdered.    At Myrtle and Tompkins people talked to me about being scared by all the killings, the rhetoric all around them, and now the possible negative reaction in the community following the murder of the two officers.

It became clear to me today that regardless of what happens next; what organizing goes on, what investigations are launched, programs developed and rhetoric shared, the church . . . must not engage in grandstanding, instigating, organizing, or even marching any longer.  People are scared, hurt, confused and bewildered.  The place of the church in all of this is not to seize the moment to be relevant or for that matter prophetic.  Our place in all of this for right now is to incarnate peace - peace in language, peace in program, peace in attitude and peace in church.

I am calling upon the clergy of the diocese to be agents of peace in the neighborhoods and communities we serve.  Our young people need some assurance and security. Our young people of color need to know that we will stand with them, that we will protect and guide them in sensible and responsible ways. They need to know that we will teach them how to stand up for their rights and stand with them when those rights are violated without resorting to violence.  Those who serve us and protect us need to know that we do not wish them harm and that we see them for who they are and aren't. The police need to know that we are allies with them in service to the community.

. . . . I am asking that we strive, and teach and practice peace and peacemaking. I am asking us to put the needs of our young people, their families and communities first. Violence cannot be a response to violence. Hatred must be remedied by love - love incarnate, made real by those who are called to be the Body of Christ.

. . . .

May Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos rest in peace.  May their families know the comfort and mercy of Jesus. And may the people of our communities find and know peace.

We are struck by the strength of our Bishop's words.  And there are more in his full text.  As we work for peace in our cities, perhaps our own suggestions for fostering more education and encouraging business opportunities in low-income neighborhoods aren't too far-fetched after all.  They're long-run, to be sure, but these situations will keep cropping up and need to be tackled at the base.  We'll be following up soon with some more specific ideas along these lines.

Meantime, may you all enjoy peace – and joy – for Christmas and for many days after.