NEW YORK—Local residents, faith leaders, and elected officials gathered in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on Sunday to remember fallen victims of gun violence, while renewing their call for reforms within the police department.
The deaths of police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in December marked them as the 16th and 17th victims of gun violence in the Bed-Stuy community last year. They were ambushed and killed by an emotionally disturbed man, while sitting inside their police car to patrol the Bed-Stuy public housing project, Tompkins Houses.
The incident escalated recent tensions between police and New Yorkers who felt a culture of brutality within law enforcement toward minority communities.
At Sunday’s rally held at the Restoration Plaza on Fulton St., clergy from local churches and a mosque, as well as their congregants, gathered to honor the deaths of Liu and Ramos. The faith leaders also led the group in a prayer to heal broken relations between police and local residents.
Captain of the local 79th police precinct, John Chell, and several of his officers also attended the rally.
Clergy members said residents value the work of police officers in the community, and recognize that many officers have a real desire to engage with them.
But the community also grieves for people who lost their lives in gun violence, including those who were shot by police officers, said pastor Shaun Lee.
“All lives matter, so we all suffer when someone dies of gun violence,” said Derick Latif Scott, an outreach supervisor with the Save Our Streets organization. The group, which operates in Brooklyn and the Bronx, works to prevent gun shootings by mediating conflicts and providing peer counseling to people in the community most likely to engage in violence.
