The death of the young NYPD officer who was gunned down in Queens Village last weekend brought back memories of a rookie cop, Eddie Byrne, killed in Jamaica as he sat in his patrol car in 1988.
There are striking parallels between the two cases, although the high-crime era of the Eighties has faded away today when felonies are at a record low.
But no matter the time and place, the cold-blooded slaying of a police officer sends a jolt through the city and makes us take stock of the people whose everyday job is to protect us.
Officer Brian Moore, 25, had made more than 150 arrests in the 105th Precinct and won two meritorious awards in his four years on the force. On a routine patrol in an unmarked car early Saturday evening, he stopped to question a suspicious man in Queens Village who is accused of firing a stolen revolver at Moore’s head. The plainclothes officer, who comes from a police family in Nassau, died two days later at Jamaica Hospital.
Police Commissioner William Bratton was clearly emotional over the murder of the third NYPD officer at the hands of gunmen in the last five months.
“He strove for a safer city,” Bratton said of Moore. “He was a cop.”
Demetrius Blackwell, a Queens Village resident who has compiled an increasingly violent rap sheet and served time, was charged with attempted murder.
Like Eddie Byrne, Moore graduated from Plainedge HS in North Massepequa and mourners gathered Monday night for a memorial near a baseball field named for the rookie cop.
Bryne, assigned to stake out the South Jamaica home of a witness in a drug case, was alone in his marked patrol car when he was shot five times in the head. The son of a cop was just 22 and worked in the 113th Precinct. Four gunmen were convicted as the assassins.
The case provoked national outrage and led to the restoration of the death penalty in New York state.
Moore’s slaying could revive the debate over stop-and-frisk and bolster Bratton’s argument to keep the broken windows policy intact.
When the city – and in these two cases Queens – loses two of its best and brightest officers, we are reminded how dangerous police work is. Whenever a suspect is stopped, there is always the possibility of a violent confrontation.
The NYPD has been on the ropes recently as police tactics are questioned, racial profiling is criticized and retraining is required. But when an officer is murdered, it’s a wake-up call not to forget that these men and women put their lives on the line for us.
