page_title: 2014 killings of NYPD officers
section_title: Background and events
hierarchical_section_title: 2014 killings of NYPD officers / Background and events
caption_attribution_description: The G train
context_page_description: On December 20, 2014, Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley killed two on-duty New York City Police Department officers in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, ostensibly as revenge for the death of Eric Garner and the shooting of Michael Brown, both of which were deaths of black men reported by police as resisting arrest.
  Brinsley then fled into the New York City Subway, where he committed suicide.
context_section_description: The shooting occurred just weeks after a grand jury decided not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was responsible for the death of Eric Garner on July 17, 2014. The grand jury's decision resulted in widespread protests in New York City and across the nation against police brutality and the lack of accountability for it. The protests also coincided with widespread protests in response to a grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9. Brinsley's motive to kill the NYPD officers was motivated by outrage over the two deaths.
  Before Brinsley arrived in Brooklyn by bus, he shot and seriously wounded his 29-year-old ex-girlfriend, Shaneka Nicole Thompson, in the Baltimore suburb of Owings Mills, Maryland, on Saturday morning. The second shooting occurred at Myrtle Avenue and Tompkins Avenue, a busy intersection in Brooklyn near the Tompkins Houses. Brinsley approached the passenger window of an NYPD patrol car occupied by Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32, of Brooklyn's 84th Precinct. He then fired a semiautomatic handgun four times through the open window, striking Ramos and Liu in the head and upper body, killing both officers instantly. Two Con Ed workers who witnessed the shooting notified police. After NYPD officers responding to the scene chased him onto the subway, he committed suicide with the handgun in the Myrtle–Willoughby Avenues (G train) subway station, according to police. Brinsley and the two police officers were taken to Woodhull Hospital, and all were pronounced dead on arrival.
caption: The Myrtle–Willoughby Avenues subway station, where Brinsley killed himself after fatally shooting two NYPD officers
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