As tensions rise between the New York Police Department, protesters and Mayor Bill de Blasio, de Blasio asked for a halt in protests until after both funerals of the slain officers recently gunned down, according to USA Today.
Nationwide protests began after charges were not filed against white police officers that killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y. Brown and Garner were black.
The officers involved killed Saturday in Brooklyn were Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. The officers were ambushed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who posted on his Instagram account the day before the shooting that he vowed to put "wings on pigs."
"We are in a very difficult moment. Our focus has to be on these families," de Blasio said at police headquarters, according to USA Today. "I think it's a time for everyone to put aside political debates, put aside protests, put aside all of the things that we will talk about in all due time."
"There's a lot of pain. It's so hard to make sense of it - how one deeply troubled, violent individual could do this to these good families," de Blasio added. "And I think it's a time for everyone to take stock that there are things that unite us, there are things that we hold dear as New Yorkers, as Americans."
Protesters denied de Blasio's request, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has stood beside de Blasio during the crisis, said the mayor's request was "ill-defined," Fox News reported.
The Answer Coalition, one of the protest groups, said it would go ahead with a march on Tuesday evening while also denouncing the mayor for what it called an "outrageous" attempt to chill free speech, according to Fox.
A petition to keep de Blasio from attending the officer's funerals has been circulating and was started by the police unions, who blame de Blasio for the deaths of the officers, according to Fox.