Killing of Two NYPD Officers Reignites Multiple Firestorms
A lone gunman’s killing of two on-duty NYPD officers in Brooklyn two days ago has reignited multiple firestorms thought to have reached their peak with nationwide protests over police-involved killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York.
Investigators said that early Saturday morning, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, shot and critically wounded an ex-girlfriend in her Owings Mills, Md., apartment after an argument, then traveled to New York intending to kill police officers. He found his quarry at about 3 p.m.—partners Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, on special duty in their squad car outside the Tompkins Houses project in Bedford-Stuyvesant—and opened fire on them. Brinsley then ran into a nearby subway station and killed himself with a shot to the head.
The officers’ deaths, which Police Commissioner William Bratton is calling “assassinations,” are having massive impact at many levels and adding even more heat to the already boiling cauldron of debate on policing, especially in communities of color, and the all-too-rare prosecutions of rogue cops.
Our guest, Michael Greys, cofounder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care and cohost of “Community Cop” on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, assesses the fallout from the officers’ deaths.
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