By Michelle Conlin NEW YORK (Reuters) – From the dingy donut shops of Manhattan to the cloistered police watering holes in Brooklyn, a number of black NYPD officers say they have experienced the same racial profiling that cost Eric Garner his life. Garner, a 43-year-old black man suspected of illegally peddling loose cigarettes, died in July after a white officer put him in a chokehold. On Saturday, those tensions escalated after a black gunman, who wrote of avenging the black deaths on social media, shot dead two New York policemen. The protests and the ambush of the uniformed officers pose a major challenge for New York Mayor Bill De Blasio. The mayor must try to ease damaged relations with a police force that feels he hasn’t fully supported them, while at the same time bridging a chasm with communities who say the police unfairly target them. What’s emerging now is that, within the thin blue line of the NYPD, there is another divide – between black and white officers. Reuters interviewed 25 African American male officers on the NYPD, 15 of whom are retired and 10 of whom are still serving.
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Off duty, black cops in New York feel threat from fellow police