TWO uniformed NYPD officers were shot dead on Saturday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner – in what investigators believe was a crazed gunman’s – assassination-style mission to avenge killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were working overtime as part of an anti-terrorism drill just before 3 p.m. when they were shot point-blank in the head by lone gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28. Moments after killing the two officers, Brinsley, too, was dead, having turned his gun on himself as cops closed in.
Liu, 32, a newlywed of only two months, had seven years on the force; Ramos, 40, dad to two sons, had two years on the job. Brinsley was already a fugitive, suspected of putting a bullet in his ex-girlfriend’s abdomen on Saturday, Bratton said.
Just three hours before shooting Liu and Ramos – vile anti-police threats were posted to Brinsley’s Instagram page. The threats referenced the recent police-involved killings of Garner and Brown. The Instagram page included an image of a silver automatic handgun with a wooden handle.
Police in Baltimore had reached out to alert NYPD that Brinsley might be en route to Brooklyn, but the fax tragically arrived at 2:45 p.m. – five minutes before the shooting, Bratton said. “The tragedy here was that just as the warning was coming in, the murder was occurring,” Bratton said.
The real tragedy is not just the deaths of the police officers, but a breakdown in the American justice system. Even the former President of the US George Bush said he couldn’t understand the decision to not press charges against the officer guilty in the killing of Eric Garner. The request for disclosure of the Eric Garner grand jury evidence by the court came from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Society. But the judge recused himself and even the Medical Examiners report has been kept under wraps -both have to be released for the public to get back their faith in the system.
Added to that is the easy access which citizens of the US have to guns – background check don’t work if the suspect was sane before and has only just acquired homicidal tendencies – this is why over 32000 Americans die due to gun related deaths every year – 15 times more than the deaths which occurred in 9/11–mainly due to the inability of an impotent legislative body which is subsidized and has strong links to the firearms industries. This corrupt collusion must also be stopped and the judiciary reformed for such accidents to not occur in the future.
