Two Slain NYPD Officers Were Just Posthumously Promoted

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at the funeral for fallen NYPD officer Rafael Ramos on Saturday, while Police Commissioner William Bratton posthumously promoted Ramos and his slain partner, Wenjian Liu, to the rank of Detective First Grade.

Image via NBC News

"We want every officer of the NYPD to know: You are not alone," Cuomo said. "An attack on the NYPD is an attack on all of us."

Cuomo brought up national questions about race and police work, mentioning "racial tensions that seem to go coast to coast" but asserting that "we are a city of laws."

Cuomo said, "The threats against New York's police are an insult to law-abiding New Yorkers and they will not be tolerated."

The governor seemed to throw a jab at the rest of the country when he said, "While some states fear diversity, we celebrate it. You hand us diversity and we will turn it into opportunity."

That diversity is reflected in the NYPD as a whole and in the patrol car that Ramos sat in when he was shot, ambush-style, on Dec. 20, Cuomo said.

"Officer Ramos, a Hispanic, sat in a patrol car with his brother officer Liu, an Asian," Cuomo noted, going on to tout the fact that NYPD officers come from 50 different countries, speak 64 different languages and "protect a city with people from literally every country on the globe living in it."

"We are one family, the family of New York," Cuomo said, before closing his speech in Spanish: "Somos uno, somos uno, somos uno."

Mayor de Blasio — who has been publicly spurned by some members of the NYPD in the wake of Ramos' slaying — also addressed the Ramos family, telling them, "You epitomize all we aspire to be."

Image via NBC News

De Blasio emphasized Ramos' Christian faith.

"He spent the last ten weeks of his life studying to be a chaplain," de Blasio noted, "and he was taken from us on the day he was supposed to graduate."

He also praised Ramos for being a peacemaker, and he, too, ended his speech with a message in Spanish, in which he praised Ramos for keeping New York City safe.

Speaking after the mayor and governor, Commissioner Bratton promoted Ramos and Liu to the rank of Detective First Grade, and he praised their dedication and work.

Bratton said as he closed, "Thank you for that applause [for the fallen officers], so thunderous that it reached the gates of Heaven for [Ramos and Liu] to hear."

This story has been updated.

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