Law & order
Two NYPD
officers murdered in Brooklyn before gunman shoots himself
Officers killed in
ambush named as Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos
Suspect Ismaaiyl
Brinsley also linked to shooting in Baltimore
Police unions say
‘blood on hands’ of protesters and mayor
theguardian.com, Sunday
21 December 2014 04.01 GMT
Investigators work at
the scene where two NYPD officers were shot in Brooklyn.Photograph: John
Minchillo/AP
Two New York City
police officers were shot and killed on Saturday afternoon as they sat in their
patrol car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
In a Saturday evening
press conference at Woodhull medical center in the borough, NYPD commissioner
Bill Bratton, his voice cracking with emotion, named the two officers killed as
Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
Bratton and New York
City mayor Bill de Blasio both said the officers had been killed “execution
style” and described their deaths as an “assassination”. “There is no more
emotional time for a police officer,” said Bratton. “A death of this nature, an
assassination, it’s unlike any other type of emotion. It’s hard to deal with.”
Bratton said the
gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, had made “very anti-police” postings on the
Instagram social media site and these were being investigated.
The killings sparked
an angry outburst from the leader of the city’s main police union, the
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Pat Lynch, president of the PBA, appeared
to blame the deaths on the protesters who have taken to the streets of New York
in recent weeks and on De Blasio, the mayor.
In a fiery press
conference outside the hospital doors, Lynch said there was “blood on their hands
[of] those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protest …
[blood] on the steps of city hall, in the office of the mayor”.
“When these funerals
are over,” said Lynch, “those responsible will be called on to the carpet and
held accountable.”
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