New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says anti-police protests after the shooting deaths of two officers are “deeply divisive.”

The mayor says protests Tuesday came during a “period of remembrance” as two families coped with deep pain and the city mourned the deaths.

De Blasio said Wednesday that chants by fringe elements comparing police to the Ku Klux Klan were not the voices of a credible cause.

He calls them “hateful words that attempt to divide this city in a time when we need to come together.”

New York Police Department Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were ambushed Saturday by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who later killed himself. He was angry over the failure to indict white police officers in the killings of unarmed black men.

(AP)