Dear Mr. Mayor:

If you have any capability for self-reflection, by now, after an avalanche of vociferous criticism, you must be asking yourself, “What was I thinking?”

If you are able to come up with an answer, please share it with the citizens of New York, because they deserve answers. I know the offer was irresistible for someone with your deranged impression of self-worth and stature.

I can picture you running to your wife with the news. “Honey, they want me to speak in Germany during the G20 summit to communist, anti-capitalist protesters!”

Your head must have been swimming with self-aggrandizing thoughts of your own stature in the progressive movement. In a moment of sheer elation impossible to hold back, I can see your head back and your arms in the air with the exclamation, “It’s all coming true.”

In New York, where I host a radio talk show on WABC, we all know you see the Mayor’s office as a stepping-stone to where you believe you deserve to be. The offer confirmed every delusion you have about a run for the Presidency.

But something inconvenient to you, tragic to us, happened on your road to the White House. Another New York City police officer was assassinated.

An ex-con armed with a sick mind and a .38 caliber revolver ambushed 48-year-old Officer Miosotis Familia, a beautiful mother of three, as she sat in a mobile command post in the Bronx.

Mr. Mayor, you were at the hospital that night. You saw Miosotis’ family and you must have felt their excruciating emotional pain. Every man and woman in the NYPD felt pain; it filtered through us all.

This was the moment when New York needs its mayor. You were elected for moments like these. Instead, you left.

None of us knew that 10 days prior to the shooting you got the invitation to play on the world stage in front of your people – communists, anarchists and anti-capitalists. Donald Trump was in Hamburg and you were asked to belittle the President of the United States on foreign soil. The kind of thing you live for.

It backfired. Your presence there only belittled yourself.

Was there a moment when you as least paused to reconsider? After leaving Miosotis’ family, after seeing her 20-year-old daughter and her 12-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, crying uncontrollably, did you think, “I should cancel my trip?” When you walked through the sea of distraught police officers outside the hospital, did you think, even for just a moment, that these men and women would give their lives for me, 'I should be there for them?'

You got on a plane for Germany the very next day.

On that day, as you were flying to Germany, 524 new NYPD officers were sworn in. They raised their hand and took the oath to protect the city in uncertain times, when officers are attacked just for wearing the uniform. They could have used the support of their mayor; instead, you were having poached salmon in First Class on your way to speaking with German communists.

About the time you arrived in Germany, hundreds attended a vigil for Miosotis Familia outside the 46th precinct in the Bronx, as the midnight shift was about to begin. How wonderful for the family and her friends in blue would it have been for the mayor to show up? You were getting into your limo in Hamburg.

As you watched anarchists attack police in Hamburg from your hotel room, did you ever think to yourself, I shouldn’t be here? The rioters represented the same ideology you were supporting. Your presence in Germany to speak to protesters was giving American validation to their actions.

In case you’re not getting this, let me summarize why people are so upset with you: As New York City was making funeral plans for an officer attacked on the streets, New York City’s Mayor showed support for those who attack police officers on the streets.

Do you have the ability to see beyond your ego how insensitive and unseemly that juxtaposition of images is?

I know, I know, your son Dante is interning in Germany and a free trip to see your son is difficult to pass up, especially for a politician used to having others pay for you. (For instance, taxpayers are now paying the legal fees for your ethics violations. And by the way, just because you weren’t charged, doesn’t mean you didn’t do wrong. I think the investigators made that quite clear in their statements. So stop crowing.)

This isn’t the first time that Dante was involved with a controversy after a police shooting. You remember.

It was when Black Lives Matter was taking off and you tripped over yourself to join them in support. You told police to stand down as thousands of protesters took over the streets of Manhattan during rush hour, inconveniencing millions.

You then doubled down and told the world that you had to warn your biracial son Dante about the dangers of dealing with police because you feared for his life. How dare you? Those same police protest you every moment you are out in public. It is those police that have brought down the crime rate in New York that you take credit for.

You helped create the anti-cop atmosphere that infected the deranged mind of Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, who traveled back home to New York from Baltimore with a mission to kill police officers.

New York City will always hold the memories of Officers Wenjian Liu and Raphael Ramos precious in our hearts. We will also remember your role in creating the atmosphere that led to their assassinations as they sat in their patrol car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on December 20, 2014.

That night, at the Brooklyn hospital where the fallen heroes were taken, the hallway was lined with fellow officers who turned their back on you in disgust. Two weeks later, at the funeral of Officer Liu, police again turned their backs as you spoke.

Fast-forward three years, another police officer is assassinated sitting in a vehicle, and this time you turned your backs on police.

I know you believe you can get away with such actions because everyone says you are assured re-election in November after a Quinnipiac poll in March showed you with a 60 percent approval rating.

That poll scared away all possibly formidable candidates in the Democratic primary. But the leading Republican candidate, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, is not afraid. She has been loud and angry in denouncing your actions.

Remember, Mr. Mayor, even though the Democratic Party in New York has an overwhelming registration advantage, voters have shown the ability to cross party lines when they get mad. Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, two Republicans, held the office for decades before you came along.

After this jaunt to Germany, your recent ethics violations, and a homeless problem that is getting out of control, perhaps New York voters will be so disgusted once again that they will turn their backs on you November 7.

If they do, remember the trip to Hamburg and ask yourself: Was it worth it?

Sincerely,
Larry Mendte

This article was originally published on storia.me and has been reprinted with permission.

**The views expressed in this column represent only those of the author and not the board or membership of the Juniper Park Civic Association.