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A gunman ambushed and fatally shot two New York City police officers
on Saturday and then killed himself, police said, and a social media
post indicated it may have been in revenge for the police chokehold
death of an unarmed black man.
The officers were killed without warning and at close range as they
sat in their squad car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn,
Police Commissioner William Bratton told a news conference, flanked by
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
"Although we're still learning the details, it's clear that this was
an assassination, that these officers were shot execution style," said
de Blasio.
New York police have come under intense pressure in recent weeks, with
protests erupting after a grand jury declined this month to charge a
white police officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner
during an arrest attempt in July in the borough of Staten Island.
Demonstrations over Garner's death came on top of protests around the
country over another grand jury's decision in November not to indict a
white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in
Ferguson, Missouri.
President Barack Obama, who was briefed on the New York killings while
on vacation in Hawaii, has had to calm eruptions of anger over police
brutality against minorities.
The killings were the first time New York City police officers have
been killed by gunfire since 2011 and were bound to fuel anger among
some police against de Blasio, who has had a prickly relationship with
law enforcement.
Bratton identified the gunman as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, and said he
took a shooter's stance on the passenger side of the squad car,
opening fire with a silver semi-automatic handgun. He then fled into a
nearby subway station and died there from a self-inflicted gunshot
wound to the head, Bratton said.
Bratton identified the slain officers as Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian
Liu, 32. Liu had been married for two months. Ramos had a 13-yearold
son.
INSTAGRAM POSTING
An online posting suggested a possible link between Brinsley, who was
black, and anger over the death of Garner.
Screenshots taken by various media showed an Instagram account
attributed to Brinsley with a picture of a black man with wire-rimmed
glasses and a separate picture of a silver pistol.
The account, using the slang insult pig for police, said: "I'm Putting
Wings On Pigs Today. They Take 1 Of Ours … Let's Take 2 of Theirs."
The post included hashtags for Eric Garner and for Michael Brown, the
teenager who was shot dead in August in Ferguson.
Instagram said the account attributed to Brinsley had been deleted.
Bratton was asked whether there was a link between Brinsley and the
weeks of protests over law enforcement, and said this was under
investigation. He added:
"There has been … a very strong anti-police, anti-criminal justice
system, anti-societal set of initiatives under way and one of the
unfortunate aspects sometimes is some people get caught up in these
and go in directions they should not."
He said police would investigate whether Brinsley had been part of
protests in New York and in Atlanta, his last place of residence, over
the Brown and Garner killings.
Brinsley had shot and seriously wounded his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore
County, Maryland, early on Saturday before traveling to Brooklyn,
where he had connections, the police commissioner said.
Attorney General Eric Holder called the killings of the police
officers "barbarism."
Culled from Reuters
