2 NYC police officers killed in ambush shooting

Scene of the crime operatives work at the scene where two NYPD officers were shot, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2014, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York. Police said an armed man walked up to two officers sitting inside the patrol car and opened fire before running into a nearby subway station and committing suicide. Both police officers were killed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

NEW YORK, United States – Two New York uniformed police officers were assassinated in their patrol car in Brooklyn in broad daylight Saturday by a gunman who subsequently killed himself.

“Today, two of New York’s finest were shot and killed with no warning, no provocation,” police Commissioner Bill Bratton told a news conference. “They were quite simply assassinated.”

Bratton identified the officers as Liu Wenjin and Raphael Ramos.

The two officers were “ambushed and murdered” — shot in the head — as they sat in the front two seats of a marked NYPD police car, Bratton said.

Liu and Ramos had been assigned to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood to address complaints of violence around housing projects in the area.

Bratton named the assailant as 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley. He walked up to the car and fired his weapon several times through the passenger window, according to Bratton.

Neither officer had the opportunity to draw their weapons and may never even have seen their assailant.

Brinsley then fled on foot and entered a nearby subway station.

“While on the platform, Brinsley shot himself in the head. Took his own life. A silver semi-automatic firearm was recovered on the subway platform near the suspect’s body,” said Bratton.

The motive for the attack was under investigation but there were no indications so far of any connection to terrorism, Bratton said.

Prior to the attack, Bratton said the suspect shot his ex-girlfriend earlier Saturday in Baltimore and made posts from her Instagram account.

Authorities didn’t get into the specifics of the contents of the posts, but two officials told The Associated Press that he posted about shooting two “pigs” in retaliation for the death of Eric Garner. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Police in New York are being criticized for their tactics following the recent chokehold death of Garner, an unarmed black man 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.