Seattle cops urged to double up while responding to calls in the wake of NYPD murders

SEATTLE -- After two New York City cops were gunned down in an ambush, the head of the Seattle Police Officers Guild said Monday that officers here are being told to double up -- or have a backup -- when responding to calls.

“You don’t have to be a New York police officer to feel the anger and the pain,” guild president Ron Smith said.

To honor the fallen officers in New York, local law enforcement officers here are wearing black mourning bands across their badges.



“Who do you call when you are being assaulted? Who do you call when someone steals your car? You call the police and we come, regardless of who you are,” Smith said.

“Remember that their profession is law enforcement, but their job is to go home at the end of the night,” Smith said.

Police say the two New York City police officers were sitting in their patrol car in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant Saturday afternoon when suspect Ismaaiyl Brinsley ambushed them.

Authorities haven't established the gunman's motive, but they've noted that Brinsley, 28, broadcast his plans to kill police on social media. And in some of his posts, investigators have said, he mentioned the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, black men who were killed by police.