2 NYC officers gunned down

Killer takes own life; online posting spoke of shooting ‘pigs’

Investigators work Saturday in the area where two New York Police Department officers were fatally shot in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Investigators work Saturday in the area where two New York Police Department officers were fatally shot in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

NEW YORK -- A gunman who announced online that he was planning to shoot two "pigs" in retaliation for the chokehold death of Eric Garner ambushed two police officers in a patrol car and shot them to death in broad daylight Saturday before running to a subway station and killing himself, authorities said.

The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, wrote on an Instagram account: "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let's take 2 of theirs," officials said. He used the hashtags Shootthepolice RIPErivGardner (sic) RIPMikeBrown.

Police said he approached the passenger window of a marked police car and opened fire, striking officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in the head. The New York Police Department officers were on special patrol doing crime reduction work in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

"They were, quite simply, assassinated -- targeted for their uniform. ... They were ambushed and murdered," Police Commissioner William Bratton said at a hospital news conference.

Brinsley ran off and went to a nearby subway station, where he shot himself. A silver handgun was recovered at the scene.

"This may be my final post," he wrote in the Instagram post that included an image of a silver handgun. The post had more than 200 likes.

Bratton confirmed that Brinsley made very serious "anti-cop" statements online but did not get into specifics on the posts. He said they were looking at whether the suspect had attended any rallies or demonstrations. Two city officials with direct knowledge of the case confirmed the posts to The Associated Press. The officials, a senior city official and a law enforcement official, were not authorized to speak publicly on the topic and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said the family of Garner, killed by a police chokehold this year, had no connection to Brinsley and denounced the violence.

"Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown in connection with any violence or killing of police is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases," Sharpton said. "We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown."

Police in New York are being criticized for their tactics after the death of Garner, who was stopped by police on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. Amateur video captured an officer wrapping his arm around Garner's neck and wrestling him to the ground. Garner was heard gasping, "I can't breathe" before he lost consciousness and later died.

Demonstrators around the country have staged protests since a grand jury decided Dec. 3 not to indict the officer in Garner's death, a decision that followed a Missouri grand jury's refusal to indict a white officer in the fatal shooting of Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old.

Brinsley was black; the officers were Asian and Hispanic, police said.

Officer Ramos was married and had a 13-year-old son, police said. He had been on the job since 2012. Liu had been on the job for seven years and got married two months ago, Bratton said.

"Our city is in mourning. Our hearts are heavy," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Officers in uniform lined up three rows deep outside the hospital to honor the fallen police officers as their bodies were taken away. The mayor ordered flags at half-staff.

In a statement Saturday night, Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the shooting deaths as senseless and "an unspeakable act of barbarism." President Barack Obama was also briefed on the shooting, and White House officials were monitoring the situation closely, the White House said.

Earlier Saturday, Bratton said, Brinsley went to the home of a former girlfriend in the Baltimore area and shot and wounded her at her home. He said they noticed Brinsley posting to the woman's Instagram account about a threat to New York officers. Baltimore-area officials sent a warning flier to New York City police, who received it around the time of the shooting, Bratton said.

Criminal records show Brinsley has a history of arrests on various charges in Georgia.

The president of the police officers union, Patrick Lynch, and de Blasio have been locked in a public battle over treatment of officers after the grand jury's decision. Just days ago, Lynch suggested police officers sign a petition that demanded the mayor not attend their funerals should they die on the job. On Saturday, some officers turned their backs on de Blasio as he walked into the hospital. At a news conference, Lynch said there is "blood on many hands" Saturday night.

The last shooting death of a New York Ciity officer was in December 2011.

Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Lemire, Tom McElroy and Juliet Linderman of The Associated Press.

A Section on 12/21/2014

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