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In New York, rising tensions and calls for unity after two police officers are killed In New York, rising tensions and calls for unity after two police officers are killed
(about 7 hours later)
NEW YORK — As New Yorkers called for unity after the assassination-style slaying of two police officers, tensions appeared to be rising Sunday as police supporters ramped up criticism of Mayor Bill de Blasio and his backers strongly defended him. Police-community relations, already strained by nationwide protests over the deaths in recent months of unarmed black people at the hands of white officers, grew even more fragile Sunday in the wake of the assassination-style slayings of two New York City patrolmen.
A day after the New York City police officers were fatally shot in their patrol cars, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, stood next to the crime scene on Tompkins Avenue and said criticism of the mayor was unjustified. The head of the police union had said de Blasio was partly responsible for the deaths of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. A day after officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were fatally shot in their patrol car, recriminations flew in the country’s largest city, with Mayor Bill de Blasio standing at the epicenter. Critics blamed the mayor and his aggressive campaign to reform police practices for the shootings, with officers taking the extraordinary step of silently turning their backs on de Blasio as he entered the hospital where the two patrolmen died.
“Blood is not on the hands of the mayor but on the sick person who took those lives,” Adams said in front of a batter of television cameras. “We’re better than that.” Relations between the mayor and officers have become so strained, former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly said in an interview, that de Blasio “probably needs an intermediary to go between himself and the [police] unions, maybe a religious leader.”
But the strained relations between de Blasio and police — which date to his mayoral campaign, when he ran on a platform of reforming aggressive police practices that had outraged minorities — appeared to have burst into full view. Officers turned their backs on the mayor as he walked into the hospital where their two comrades died, and former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly accused de Blasio of having run an “anti-police campaign.’’ While other New York elected officials defended the mayor, concerns about more anti-police violence extended elsewhere, with departments and police unions in states including Massachusetts and New Jersey warning officers to be on high alert.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,’’ Kelly said the backlash against de Blasio was fueled by the mayor’s recent comments about advising his son, who is half black, to take “special care” in encounters with police. “I think that set off this latest firestorm,’’ Kelly said. In the Washington area — where suspect Ismaaiyl Brinsley on Saturday allegedly shot and wounded his former girlfriend near Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn, killing the two police officers and taking his own life — officers said they felt vulnerable. “We are in uniform and in marked cars,” said Delroy Burton, head of the D.C. Fraternal Order of Police. “There is no way to defend against someone who wants to do us harm. There is no way to see it coming.”
As recriminations over the shootings intensified, police said Sunday that the same 9mm semiautomatic handgun that killed Liu and Ramos was probably used earlier Saturday near Baltimore to shoot and wound the former girlfriend of the suspect. Authorities identified the suspect as 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley and said he traveled from Baltimore to Brooklyn and killed the officers in a brazen ambush on a quiet street corner Saturday afternoon, before taking his own life. More information emerged Sunday about the slayings of the officers, as well as the background of the alleged shooter. Police described Brinsley as a highly troubled man with a violent past, saying he had been arrested 19 times — 15 times in Georgia and four in Ohio — and that his mother had feared him. A year ago, they said, Brinsley tried to hang himself.
The officers were shot in the head at point-blank range while sitting beside each other in a police car in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, police said. While authorities said it was unclear whether Brinsley had been involved in the protests that have roiled the nation in recent weeks, leaders of the burgeoning national movement against police violence worked to distance themselves from the events in New York. Even so, the level of blame laid at their feet by some politicians illustrated the tense atmosphere.
The shooting has heightened tensions in a country and city already roiled by demonstrations against police brutality in the wake of recent killings of unarmed black men by white police officers in Missouri and New York. Just three hours before Saturday’s shootings, authorities said, Brinsley declared his intention on his Instagram account to kill police officers as retribution for the police killings of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City.
Just three hours before the shootings, the gunman declared his intention on his Instagram account to kill police officers as retribution for the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), known for his tough anti-crime policies in the 1990s, blamed not only the protesters for Saturday’s shootings but also the sympathy they have garnered from de Blasio and President Obama.
Before he made his way to Brooklyn on Saturday morning, police said, Brinsley shot his former girlfriend about 5:45 a.m. in Owings Mills, Md., about 15 miles outside Baltimore. Baltimore County police identified her as Shaneka Nicole Thompson, 29. “We’ve had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police,” Giuliani said on “Fox and Friends Weekend.” “I don’t care how you want to describe it: That’s what those protests are all about.”
Police said in a statement that she was wounded in the abdomen by a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and is in critical but stable condition at an area hospital and that she is expected to survive. Police said they have not been able to interview her because of her condition but are hoping to speak with her later Sunday. De Blasio has condemned the killings as “a despicable act,” and the White House said Obama called New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton on Sunday morning to express his condolences. “The President reiterated his call for the American people to reject violence and words that harm, and turn to words that heal — prayer, patient dialogue, and sympathy for the friends and family of the fallen,” the White House said in a statement.
Brinsley’s address is unknown, and the police statement said authorities “believe he has no ties to the Baltimore area except Thompson.” Police said that they believe Brinsley and Thompson had a previous romantic relationship that dates back less than a year and that Thompson lived alone at the Owings Mills apartment where she was shot. Police on Sunday said Brinsley, 28, had a long criminal record and an apparent history of mental illness.
Born in Brooklyn, Brinsley attended high school in New Jersey, with his mother telling officers that he was violent growing up and that she feared him, according to Robert Boyce, NYPD chief of detectives.
While Boyce said at a news conference that he would not speculate on a motive, he said Brinsley had burned a flag in one Instagram posting and mentioned Brown and Garner in others.
Soon before the officers were shot in the head at point-blank range while sitting beside each other in a police car in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, Brinsley approached several witnesses on the street, asked them to follow him on Instagram and said, “Watch what I’m going to do,” police said.
After the shooting, Brinsley ran up the street and was pursued by other officers into a subway station, where he was found with a gunshot wound that appeared to be self-inflicted, police said. He was declared dead at a nearby hospital, police said.
Authorities Sunday also detailed the Washington area’s connection to the attacks. Police said the same 9mm semiautomatic handgun that killed Liu and Ramos was probably used earlier Saturday near Baltimore to shoot and wound Brinsley’s former girlfriend. Police identified her as Shaneka Nicole Thompson, 29.
Before he made his way to Brooklyn on Saturday morning, police said, Brinsley shot Thompson at about 5:45 a.m. in Owings Mills, Md., about 15 miles outside Baltimore.
In a statement, Baltimore County police said she was wounded in the abdomen, and is in critical but stable condition at an area hospital but is expected to survive. Officers said they have not been able to interview her because of her condition but were hoping to speak with her later Sunday.
Brinsley’s address is unknown, and the police statement said that authorities “believe he has no ties to the Baltimore area except Thompson.” Police said that they believe Brinsley and Thompson had a previous romantic relationship that dates back less than a year and that Thompson lived alone at the apartment where she was shot.
“There is no indication of prior criminal activity by Brinsley in Maryland,” the statement said.“There is no indication of prior criminal activity by Brinsley in Maryland,” the statement said.
The shooting early Saturday occurred inside an apartment in the gated complex of Greenwich Place Town Center. Managers told a reporter to leave Saturday night and Sunday morning. The shooting early Saturday occurred inside an apartment at Greenwich Place at Town Center, a gated complex. Apartment managers told a reporter to leave Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Thompson’s 71-year-old grandfather James Delly, who lives in South Carolina, said that he never heard of the suspect and that his granddaughter, with whom he is close, never mentioned him. “I don’t know anything about him,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday. Thompson’s 71-year-old grandfather, James Delly, who lives in South Carolina, said that he had never heard of the suspect and that his granddaughter, with whom he is close, never mentioned him. “I don’t know anything about him,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday.
He said Thompson’s mother, who lives in South Carolina, is in Baltimore with her daughter at the hospital. Of the family, Delly said, “I think they’re just holding out to see if my granddaughter is going to come through.”He said Thompson’s mother, who lives in South Carolina, is in Baltimore with her daughter at the hospital. Of the family, Delly said, “I think they’re just holding out to see if my granddaughter is going to come through.”
He said Thompson moved to Baltimore County from Fayetteville, N.C., about six months ago for a better job. The recriminations directed primarily at De Blasio for the shootings began Saturday, with the head of the New York City police union saying the mayor had “blood on his hands” and former New York governor George Pataki (R) saying on Twitter that the shootings “sadly are a predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric” of the mayor and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
In New York, in the aftermath of the officers’ death, people seemed to be searching to understand what happened. Asked about Pataki’s tweet in an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said, “I blame the shooter and nobody else.”
One resident of this Bedford-Stuyvesant community, who moved here from the Bronx three months ago, said seeing police parked in their cars in her neighborhood was reassuring. But he added, “I think the mayor of New York has probably undercut his cops, and the attorney general is trying to walk a fine line.”
“I feel safe walking here,” said Michele Digby, 49. “We used to hear shots fired and bullet shells [in the Bronx], but not here.” Others defended de Blasio, arguing that he is trying to bridge divisions, not widen them. De Blasio campaigned for mayor in part on reforming police tactics that he said had unfairly targeted minorities — especially the controversial “stop and frisk” policy, under which police stopped virtually anyone deemed suspicious.
But Digby also said she was not surprised by the attack on the officers. “I think the tone that the mayor is trying to set is a tone that brings people together,” Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.) said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We stand with the police department. No one has ever given up on the police department or said we were anti-police-department. What we were crying for was just saying how African Americans feel — how their communities are policed.’’
“I kind of figured this would happen eventually,” she said. “They let that policeman go,” referring to the jury’s decision not to indict the officer involved in the chokehold death of Staten Islander Eric Garner six months ago. Leaders of the diverse movement that has been protesting police tactics also took pains to distance themselves and their organizations from the killings.
Victor Parker, 49, who said he has lived in this neighborhood all his life, nodded slowly when asked about how much tension exists between police and residents. In statements, social-media postings and interviews, protest organizers struck a unified message, emphasizing that the shootings were tragic and not linked to the protests. They pointed to their repeated public calls advocating nonviolence.
“A lot of it,” he said, especially lately. “When people see the cops they go, ‘Uh-oh.’ They feel they’re here to harass them.” “We’ve all said that this is a horrible thing that shouldn’t have happened,” said Charles Wade, a leading protest organizer. “I say time and time again that I’m against police violence and I’m not against police officers in general.”
Parker also said he had seen Liu and Ramos before in the neighborhood. Back in Brooklyn, a memorial continued to grow at the site where the officers died. Ramos, 40, was a lifelong Brooklyn resident who joined the police force after working as a school security guard, according to the Associated Press. He was married with two sons, a 13-year-old and one in college, the AP reported. His younger son, Jaden, said goodbye to his father Saturday night in a post on Facebook: “Today I had to say bye to my father. He was the best father I could ask for. . . . I will always love you and never forget you. RIP Dad.”
“They were just doing their job,” he said, shaking his head sadly. He said area residents had seen the two officers buying food at the deli across the street from their patrol car minutes before they were shot. Liu, 32, had been with the force for seven years and had gotten married just two months ago, the AP reported.
“They went to get lunch and came back and got ambushed,” he said. “. . . Civilians and cops need to get together.” Supporters at the memorial site Sunday used a phrase associated with protest movements to express their grief. They held candles and sang, “We shall overcome.”
Standing in front of the ever-expanding sidewalk memorial to the dead officers, three of the city’s borough presidents announced that a candlelight vigil would be held here at the intersection of Tompkins and Myrtle at 6 p.m. Sunday. Jessica Dunn, 34, a local resident, pushed her way through the crowd to lay a bouquet of roses at the memorial. “I came to pay my respects. We need to let the police know how much this community needs them, especially right now,” she said. “I came to show respect.”
Adams, along with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, urged residents and law enforcement come together to talk about what happened here and the larger issues of race relations and community policing. Amy Ellis Nutt and Danielle Paquette in New York, and Peter Holley, Sean Sullivan, Wesley Lowery and Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.
“The overwhelming majority of 35,000 men and women in uniform are out there protecting us,” Diaz said. “No matter where you stand on the debate. . . what happened here was wrong. What happened here was an assassination on all of us. . . .This should not and must not be tolerated.”
De Blasio, at a news conference Saturday evening, condemned the attack on the officers.“It’s clear that this was an assassination,” he said. “These officers were shot execution-style, a particularly despicable act which goes to the heart of our society and our democracy.”
Yet the aftermath of the shootings loomed as the latest test of the mayor’s uneasy relationship with police and as a major test for New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton. One person close to the mayor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics, said Bratton is respected by officers but is not considered a “cop’s cop” like his predecessor, Kelly.
The person also said that the police union has been circulating a petition among officers urging that the mayor not be allowed to come to police funerals.
In Maryland, police said Brinsley fled the scene of the shooting of his former girlfriend before they arrived. By 1:30 p.m., police said, they became aware of Instagram posts by the suspect that included “threats against police officers.” Authorities said they quickly traced the posts and the phone that Brinsley was using to a location in Brooklyn.
About 2:10 p.m., Baltimore County police called New York’s 70th Precinct to discuss the threatening Instagram posts and informed officers that Brinsley’s phone was “pinging” at a location in their precinct. At the same time, Baltimore County authorities said they faxed a “wanted” poster to the NYPD with information about Brinsley. Around 2:50 p.m., they sent a teletype with the same information in the flier to NYPD’s “real-time crime center.”
They were too late. At about 2:45 p.m., police said, Brinsley approached the officers’ marked patrol car outside Tompkins Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn and began firing into the front passenger-side window.
“I’m putting Wings on Pigs Today,” Brinsley wrote on his Instagram account beneath a photo of a silver-colored semiautomatic pistol and a pair of blood-stained camouflage pants. “They TAKE 1 Of Ours . . . Lets Take 2 of Theirs.” The Instagram photos use hashtags for Brown and Garner and appear to indicate that the shootings were an act of revenge.
Brinsley stole his ex-girlfriend’s phone after the shooting before traveling to New York, authorities said. At some point along the way, he posted a menacing update on Facebook.
“I Always Wanted To Be Known For Doing Something Right . . . But My Past Is Stalking Me and My Present Is Haunting Me,” it read.
Bratton said investigators were looking into all of Brinsley’s ­social-media accounts in an attempt to unravel the shooter’s motivations.
“Some of the postings, which I understand are out there, would seem to indicate that he had a very strong bias against police officers,” Bratton said.
He said investigators have no reason to believe that Brinsley has any connection to terrorist groups.
“We’re not seeing a connectivity to any organized entity at this time,” Bratton noted.
After the shooting, Brinsley ran up the street and was pursued by other officers into a subway station, where he was found with a gunshot wound that appeared to be self-inflicted, police said. He was declared dead at a nearby hospital, police said.
Hermann and Markon reported from Washington. Peter Holley, Sean Sullivan, J. Freedom du Lac, Ed O’Keefe and David Nakamura in Washington contributed to this report.