James Woods returns to Twitter over NY police killings

THE Oscar-nominated actor James Woods has returned from a self-imposed Twitter exile to rail against the Reverend Al Sharpton and Mayor Bill de Blasio in the wake of the killing of two New York police officers.

Never a fan of Barack Obama, the controversial star has ignored the President's call to "reject words that harm", instead branding Sharpton a "race pimp" and "racketeer".

And Woods has seized upon a police union chief's suggestion that De Blasio has "blood on his hands", calling on all officers to "turn your back every time De Blasio speaks… especially at Cops' funerals".

The actor's return to social media comes after a gunman shot and killed Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn on Saturday, before fleeing into a nearby subway station and shooting himself in the head.

The post was followed hashtags referencing Eric Garner, a black man who died after being placed in a chokehold by police in July, and Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot and killed by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri in August.