On a cold December afternoon in Brooklyn, 32-year-old Wenjian Liu, a male police officer of Chinese-American descent, was senselessly murdered in an act of targeted violence. On December 20, 2014, he and his partner, Officer Rafael Ramos, were sitting in their marked patrol car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood when a man approached the vehicle and, without warning, opened fire. Both Liu and Ramos were struck in the head and killed instantly in the ambush.
The unprovoked attack was a shocking act of violence that reverberated through the city and the nation.
The man responsible for the cold-blooded killings was identified as 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley. Earlier that same day in Baltimore, Brinsley had shot and seriously wounded his ex-girlfriend. He then traveled by bus to New York City. Before the attack on the officers, Brinsley had made posts on social media expressing anger over the recent deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, vowing to put 'wings on pigs.' After assassinating Officers Liu and Ramos, Brinsley fled into a nearby subway station. As police closed in on him, he took his own life on the platform with the same handgun used in the murders.
Brinsley, who had a long criminal history with numerous arrests in Georgia and Ohio, was described by his family as emotionally disturbed and had a history of violence. The firearm he used was a Taurus 9mm semi-automatic handgun. The brazen and calculated nature of the attack, which the NYPD deemed an assassination, was a direct assault on law enforcement. In the wake of the tragedy, both Officer Liu and Officer Ramos were posthumously promoted to the rank of Detective First Grade. The deaths of the two officers left their families and the entire police department in mourning, highlighting the dangers faced by law enforcement officers and sparking a period of intense grief and tension throughout New York City.
