Boston Police Commissioner William Evans condemned Saturday’s execution-style shooting of two New York City police officers but said his department is taking no specific action in response.
Boston police, he said, have been on heightened alert since last month’s Ferguson grand jury verdict.
Speaking at the annual Christmas in the City party for children Sunday afternoon, Evans said that apart from being on alert, it is very difficult for police to protect against the kind of attack that occurred in New York City.
“I don’t know what you can do to stop something like that. It was an act of execution, basically,” he said. “It’s sad for the two families who are going into the holiday season [and] their loved ones are not going to be there. Just a terrible tragedy. . . . It’s a sad day for law enforcement.”
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He said he is not worried about copycat violence in Boston. Immediately after a grand jury declined to indict the white police officer who killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Mo., Boston police were instructed to have two officers in every cruiser, but that is not currently a requirement, Evans said.
“At this time we have stepped up patrols, several officers backing each other up at calls, but unless we get something in the area of a specific threat, we’re going to continue to do what we do and officers will be responding to each others’ calls, just making sure we have each others’ backs,” he said.
Evans lamented the undertone of anger and frustration that some in the public have directed toward police since grand juries declined to indict the officer in Ferguson and the white officer involved in the July 17 chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black man, in New York. The deaths of Brown and Garner sparked racially charged demonstrations against police across the country.
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Before shooting and killing the two officers in New York Saturday afternoon, the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, warned on social media he wanted to kill police in retaliation for Garner’s death, officials said.
“We can feel the tension out there,” Evans said. “I take it personally because I know how hard we work, I know how dedicated we are, we work, our officers put their lives on the line every day. We’ve had 700 guns taken literally off kids [since Jan. 1], and we’ve had no [police] shootings at all. And that’s the untold story, how hard we work, what restraint we use.”
Evans said he is saddened by how quickly general sentiment toward police has shifted from that April evening in 2013 when people crowded the streets applauding police after the capture of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown, to protesters shouting at them during recent demonstrations about the deaths of African-American men at the hands of white police.
“Walking out of Watertown, people were cheering us and I said that I’ve never had a greater feeling in the world that people were rallying around us,” he said.
“And it’s sad how things have changed . . . when, really, all we’ve been doing is working harder and making the city safer.”
Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who was also at the children’s Christmas party, called the killings a tragedy and denounced the use of violence against police as a means to get a message across.
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“What happened in Ferguson and what happened in New York City is not about retaliation, getting people back; it’s about having conversations, dialogues, peaceful dialogues to figure out if there’s an issue, to solve the problems in the future,” Walsh said. “That’s what Commissioner Evans and myself have been doing really for the past year, is having dialogues and conversations with people. You don’t react by violence.’’
Governor Deval Patrick, also at the holiday party, said he hopes the relationships that State Police and local police have worked to forge in Massachusetts communities will help to prevent events like the one in New York City during the weekend.
“I wish for and pray for their safety, as I do for the safety of those in the communities they serve every day,” Patrick said.
Katheleen Conti can be reached at kconti@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKConti. Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.