Local victims of bombings by the terror group FALN watched in disgust Sunday as one of the murderous organization’s former leaders led Manhattan’s Puerto Rican Day Parade — riding out in front as the guest of honor with his fist thrust defiantly in the air.
“It’s repulsive, I’m sick to my stomach,” said retired NYPD Detective Tony Senft, 70, who lost an eye while diffusing one of the group’s bombs at a Manhattan courthouse in 1982.
“I don’t understand how anyone can march with a known terrorist … I’m Italian, but [late Mafia don] John Gotti doesn’t represent me,” he said. “I wouldn’t march down the street with him.”
Convicted FALN leader Oscar Lopez Rivera, who spent 35 years behind bars for his ties to the group, had declined the parade’s “National Freedom Award” amidst widespread backlash and sponsor boycotts. But he was still front and center at the procession, palling it up with City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, one of his biggest fans.
“I’m not surprised. I think Mark-Viverito is a radical person, and she’s not going to stop until she gets to honor left-wing terrorists,” said Thomas Connor, 53, who was 11 when he lost his dad, Frank, in a 1975 FALN attack on lower Manhattan’s landmark Fraunces Tavern.
Mayor de Blasio, who said he would not march if Lopez Rivera was honored, still marched Sunday. He gave the FALN leader a wide berth — but not wide enough for Senft.
“De Blasio is prostituting himself for votes. He’s doing whatever he has to do to not let the Puerto Rican people to get mad at him,” he said.
“If Mr. de Blasio’s family members were victims of terrorism, he wouldn’t be feeling this way.”
Disgusting.
And I'm glad to see scumbag De Blasio getting called out for his racial pandering.