Victims watch in outrage as city honors convicted terrorist
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.”
De Blasio remained mum when The Post asked him Sunday why he was still marching in the parade.
Neither Senft nor Connor said they begrudge ordinary Puerto Ricans turning out to celebrate their heritage at the event, although Connor wondered what parade-goers were thinking as Lopez Rivera’s float passed by — noting that the vast majority of people from the Caribbean island don’t support independence.
“You’re standing on the side of the street with your 10-year-old kid, what do you say to him? ‘There goes Oscar Lopez Rivera — he set off hundreds of bombs in New York City years ago and he’s never apologized?’ Is that what you say to your kid?” said Connor.
Conner and his brother, Joe, spearheaded a campaign to encourage sponsors and politicians to boycott the parade over Lopez Rivera’s inclusion, which ultimately led big names such as Goya Foods, AT&T, Corona, Coca-Cola, JetBlue, the Yankees and television stations Univision, Telemundo and NBC-TV to drop out.
He said he and his sibling have since been inundated with thanks from Puerto Ricans who also opposed Lopez Rivera’s presence.
“[Joe’s] gotten hundreds of tweets from Puerto Rican people saying, ‘Don’t think we’re in agreement, we’re ashamed and apologizing.’ I certainly don’t think the people that are at the parade all condone what he did,” Connor said.
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