Just days after two on-duty New York Police Department officers were fatally shot, new cadets were advised to refrain from wearing their uniforms in public.
The shooting was an apparent revenge attack for the recent deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police. The advisory put forth by police officials is being called a "soft recommendation" in precautions for police safety, reported ABC News.
"It doesn't matter who is wearing the uniform. It's the uniform itself [that] is the target," Former Det. Sgt. Joe Giacalone told ABC News. "The police department, because it's under siege, has to worry about protecting their own lives first."
Cadets are unarmed but typically wear their uniform to and from work, explained Giacalone, who spent one of his 21 years on the force training cadets.
In response to the shootings in association with the NYPD he even told his father, who he said regularly wears an NYPD baseball hat to support his son, to refrain from wearing the apparel for a while, reported ABC News.
The NYPD also stopped using unarmed auxiliary officers on Monday "until further notice," and every patrol has been assigned two officers.
