Cuomo: Slain cops' families to be helped, underscores need for respite in NYC (Update)

(Updates with confirmation, comment by foundation.)

ALBANY -- Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday that a foundation will pay the mortgages of the families of the New York City police officers slain Saturday and that he will convene a panel to propose reforms in answer to concerns exposed in tensions over police confrontations with civilians.

But Cuomo, in a radio interview Tuesday, also refused to back down after objections by protest leaders who oppose his call for a holiday respite in demonstrations. Protest leaders told WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” that they object to Cuomo’s request, which they say unfairly links peaceful protests to Saturday’s killing of two police officers by an apparently unstable African-American man.

The protest leaders said the throwing of garbage cans, an assault on a police lieutenant and chants calling for the death of police were isolated and not part of the peaceful demonstrations. Demonstrators want reforms to the criminal justice system following the apparent choking death of African-American suspect Eric Garner while he was restrained by police, and after a grand jury decided not to charge a police officer involved in the case.

“The dialogue got out of control and to say it was only one or two guys ... it doesn’t matter,” said Cuomo, who called for the respite on Monday. “To say it was only one or two chants saying ‘We want dead cops’ -- one or two is one or two too many.

“It was clear that we came near a point of disruption. ... The dialogue became overheated,” Cuomo said Tuesday.

Cuomo continued to refuse to blame Mayor Bill de Blasio, police union President Pat Lynch or activists for their rhetoric, even as he called for all of them to suspend their commentary and accusations.

Cuomo refused to say if Lynch went too far by saying de Blasio had “blood on his hands” in the police officers’ deaths because of the mayor’s public concerns about police interactions with young men of color, like de Blasio’s biracial son.

The charity that will pay the officers' mortgages, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, said it was responding to Cuomo’s statement Monday that the Liu family worried how it would pay the mortgage on the home purchased two years ago as the officer’s dream house.

“When my brother Stephen died on Sept. 11 along with 342 other firefighters, our family decided that the best way to honor his memory was by supporting first responders,” said Frank Siller, CEO of the foundation. “This -- and the fact that for the last several years Tunnel to Towers has been building 'smart homes' for those catastrophically injured in war -- makes it fitting that in recognition of the sacrifice of these fallen officers, we ensure that their family homes are financially secure.

“In times of need and pain, the family of New York always comes together,” Siller said.