Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley (31 October 1986-20 December 2014) was a Muslim African-American criminal who murdered New York Police Department (NYPD) police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in New York City in response to the police murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Brinsley had a long history of crime and mental health issues, and he killed himself while attempting to flee in the subway.
Biography[]
Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley was born on 31 October 1986 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York to a family of Muslim African-Americans. He had a criminal record including weapons possession and robbery, and he had nineteen arrests in the state of Georgia and Ohio. He was living in Georgia by 2014, when he decided that he would kill New York Police Department policemen in New York City in revenge for the police's killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown in New York and Missouri, respectively. Brinsley decided to kill himself before he wanted to kill the policemen on 20 December 2014, but he shot his girlfriend Shaneka Thompson instead, seriously wounding her. He then wrote on social media that he was "putting wings on pigs", and he brought a Taurus PT92 parabellum pistol with him to Brooklyn. He approached the passenger window of a police cruiser and shot the two officers with his semiautomatic handgun, killing them. Brinsley attempted to flee into the subway, and he shot himself at Myrtle-Willoughby Avenues at the G Train station.