US President Barack Obama has condemned the killing of two New York police officers shot by a man who then turned his gun on himself. “I unconditionally condemn today’s murder of two police officers in New York City,” Obama, who is on Christmas holiday in Hawaii, said on Sunday. “Officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day.”
The officers – Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32 – were ambushed and fatally shot in their marked police patrol car by a 28-year-old man named Ismaaiyl Brinsley, said William Bratton, the commissioner for the New York Police Department.
Reports said Brisnley was apparently seeking revenge for the death of an unarmed black man during an arrest attempt.
Al Jazeera’s John Terrett, reporting from New York, said Brinsley had posted “very vicious, anti-police messages” on social media before the attack, the first in which NYPD officers had been killed by gunfire since 2011. Eric Holder, the US attorney general, promised the support of the Justice Department throughout the investigation.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said: “Although we’re still learning the details, it’s clear that this was an assassination, that these officers were shot execution style.”
Bratton said after the attack Brinsley fled into a nearby metro station and died there from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Police said Brinsley had shot and wounded his girlfriend in Baltimore before driving to Brooklyn.
Bratton added that the gunman had made online posts that were “very anti-police.”
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