Shoot-from-the-lip Rep. Charles Rangel ducked for cover yesterday as Mayor Bloomberg angrily blasted him for making a racially provocative crack about a cop-on-cop, friendly-fire tragedy.
Rangel had snidely warned President Obama, who was in town Saturday with the first lady, to be sure not to “run around East Harlem unidentified” — alluding to the fatal, mistaken shooting of a black cop by a white cop in the neighborhood two days earlier.
“I have a lot of respect for Charlie Rangel, but in this respect, he’s just plain wrong,” a livid Bloomberg said.
“This is a tragedy,” he added, saying he spent time talking with slain Officer Omar Edwards’ wife, Danielle, and the couple’s two young sons.
“This was started by a 30-something-year-old, probably high on drugs,” the mayor said — referring to the thief Edwards had just chased down on East 125th Street when he was fatally shot by Officer Andrew Dunton, who had mistaken the off-duty cop for a criminal.
“[Edwards’] mother kept saying to me, ‘You’re always a police officer, off-duty or on-duty,’ ”
The mayor also insisted, “There’s no reason to suspect this had any racial undertones.”
Rangel had stirred the already roiling and racially charged atmosphere surrounding the tragedy while speaking at a rally in honor of Edwards on Saturday.
“Make certain [Obama] doesn’t run around East Harlem unidentified,” Rangel had said. “If [he] did not have the Secret Service . . . around him, [city cops] wouldn’t know if he was president of the United States.”
The politician neither elaborated on nor defended the crack yesterday. He was not to be seen at his Harlem apartment building, and his Washington spokesman did not return a request for comment.
Gov. Paterson appeared to defend the lawmaker.
“It’s just that he is probably responding to the fact that this type of incident had happened in the district that he’s represented a number of times before,” Paterson said. “I think whatever he says expresses the viewpoints of a lot of people.”
As for his own viewpoint, Paterson was more cautious.
“Whenever you’ve had such a terrible accident and a terrible tragedy . . . what you want to do is restore public confidence, and whatever is the best way to investigate it that would do that, I’m in favor of,” he said.
City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who’s running for mayor against Bloomberg and is black, also dodged criticizing Rangel.
“Given the circumstances and many questions surrounding this horrible tragedy, there must be an independent investigation to determine if there was a failure in either police procedure or training,” Thompson said.
The NYPD and city were moving in that direction last night after a meeting between Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, state Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and former cop and current state Sen. Eric Adams.
Kelly’s spokesman, Paul Browne, said the NYPD will begin “confrontation training” intended to help cops identify one another in similar situations.
The NYPD also intends to survey undercover cops to determine the extent to which they are misidentified by fellow officers. The department aims to bring in outside consultants in the matter, too, Browne said.
Smith and Adams, who are black, sounded positive afterward.
“Obviously, this is a situation where something seriously went wrong,” Smith said.
Adams said he was “encouraged — I believe the commissioner sees how large this problem is. There is not a quick fix.”
Meanwhile, Edwards’ father-in-law — a cop from the 67th Precinct in Brooklyn — urged for calm and answers to ease his family’s loss.
“We are trying to understand everything that happened,” said William Glenn, his voice choked with emotion as he stood on the stoop of the Brooklyn building where Edwards, 25, lived.
“That officer knows what happened that night,” he said of Dunton. “He has a lot to think about for himself. My heart goes out to him. He made a mistake.
“I’m going to trust in the investigation.”
A wake for Edwards will be held tomorrow from 4 to 8 p.m. and Wednesday from 2 to 8 p.m. at the Woodward Funeral Home in Brooklyn. His funeral will be held at Lady of Victoria church in Brooklyn. Details were pending.
Additional reporting by Cathy Burke, Sally Goldenberg, Larry Celona & Perry Chiaramonte