Cop-killer’s suicide was a little more complicated than that
Most of the coverage of the death of Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the murderer of the two NYC policemen, indicates he killed himself on a subway platform. While this is true, his suicide wasn’t spontaneous.
Details that have emerged include the following actions of Brinsley prior to the murders:
The gunman who fatally ambushed two police officers in their squad car had a long criminal record, a hatred for police and the government and an apparent history of mental instability that included an attempt to hang himself a year ago, authorities said Sunday.
Moments before opening fire, Ismaaiyl Brinsley approached people on the street and asked them to follow him on Instagram, then told them, “Watch what I’m going to do,” Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said…
Brinsley, 28, had at least 19 arrests in Georgia and Ohio, spent two years in prison for gun possession and had a troubled childhood so violent that his mother was afraid of him, police said.
After the murders, it appears that police pursued Brinsley into the subway station and this is what precipitated his suicide. It was like a scene from a movie:
Brinsley fled south on Tompkins to the subway where “they engaged the guy and he ”˜did’ himself,” an NYPD investigator said.
“While on the platform, Brinsley shot himself in the head ”” took his own life,” the commissioner said…
Carmen Jimenez, 32, a social worker from Bed-Stuy, was on the subway platform when the gunman ran in, pursued by cops.
“It looked like two cops came in. There was lots of yelling and they said, ”˜Everybody get down,’”‰” said Jimenez, who is eight months pregnant.
“People were screaming. People were trying to run,” she said.
“I threw myself on the floor. I was afraid for my life and afraid for my baby.”
Trying to account for Brinsley’s actions in killing Ramos and Liu based on a single motivation would seem futile. He’d been a criminal most of his adult life. He was volatile and aggressive, sometimes towards himself. He may have been mentally ill but perhaps not. All in all, a frightening character to those who crossed his path, including his family.
But he hadn’t murdered anyone yet. Something set him off, and it seems to have been the publicity around the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, and the hatred and calls for violence against police. The analogy would be to lighting a match in a room that’s been filling with gas. You get an explosion.
Wasn’t he on the lam for his girlfriend’s murder, done that day or the day before?
pandelume:
It was that morning—clearly part of the same event cascade.
And he didn’t kill her—he shot her in the abdomen, and she is expected to survive. I assume it was an attempted murder, however.
It’ll be interesting to see what effect this has on Obama’s poll numbers, as crass as that sounds.
Will people blame him for the poisonous atmosphere?
He certainly deserves blame.
Remember how the mainstream media, especially so-called news outlets, and other usual-suspect leftie types were all over themselves blaming Sarah Palin and/or the Tea Party for various heinous shootings of innocents?
And now, after that toxic and vile “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now” — it’s crickets, crickets, crickets. It’s crickets all the way down.
What do we want?
Accountability!
When do we want it?
2016!!
According to some reports, the perp was also apparently a Muslim, who reports say put up a quote from the Qur’an on the Internet about “sowing terror among the unbelievers” before his assassination of these two cops and his death.
M J R,
No one could have said it better than what you posted.
But he wasn’t on some spree it seems. Reports are that two ConEd employees followed and confronted him after the shooting. The threatened them and they backed off. Then he went on his way. They were able to direct the police to the subway and give a description.
His shootings had a purpose other than just to kill.
And what was Benghazi, except the US funding terrorists to kill our own ambassador and CIA covert action squads?