By Newsmax Wires

Two uniformed New York City police officers were shot dead Saturday afternoon as they sat in a marked police car in Brooklyn, in what investigators believe was an armed gunman’s move to avenge the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

The suspect was found dead a short time later in a nearby subway station, The New York Post reports.

The shooter was identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley who wounded his girlfriend in Baltimore before driving to New York and ambushing the officers, according to the New York Daily News. Brinsley, reportedly a gang member, bragged on Instagram just hours before the shooting that he wanted to take out some cops, according to the Daily News.

He apparently shot himself in the head as officers closed in on the crowded subway platform.

“It’s an execution,” a law-enforcement source told the Post. The shooting occurred at 3 p.m. in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The man had fired through the front windshield.

The officers’ names were not released pending notification of relatives, the Post reports. The officers were taken to Woodhull Hospital in the borough — and at least one had been shot in the head, police said.

“I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” Brinsley, believed to be the shooting suspect, wrote on an Instagram posting three hours before the shooting, the Post reports.

The shooting comes as police are being heavily criticized for their tactics following the chokehold death of Garner. A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict NYPD officer in the incident.
Several officers have also been assaulted at New York City protests during demonstrations that have largely been peaceful.

According to the Post, the gunman walked up to officers, who were sitting inside the patrol car, and opened fire. He then fled into the subway station. He shot himself as other officers approached.

“They engaged the guy and he did himself,” a police investigator told the Post.

In the Instagram posting, an image of silver automatic handgun with a wooden handle was included.

Another post on the alleged suspect’s page showed camouflage pants and blue sneakers, which matched the clothing the dead gunman was wearing as his body was carried from the scene on a stretcher, the Post reports.

“They Take 1 Of Ours … Let’s Take 2 of Theirs,” the post continued, signing off with, “This May Be My Final Post.”

According to the Post, the gunman was a fugitive who had killed his girlfriend in Baltimore Saturday morning.

“Our prayers are with our fellow #NYPD brothers who were executed in the line of duty today in #Brooklyn,” the New York Police Department’s 66th Precinct posted on its official Twitter page.

NYPD Captains Endowment Association president Roy Richter called the assault the “worst nightmare.”

“Incredible sadness as we mourn for our brothers and their families,” he added on Twitter.

Earlier, NYPD spokesman Sergeant Lee Jones told AFP that the two police officers were shot at 2:50 pm (1950 GMT) at the corner of Myrtle and Tompkins avenues in the 79th precinct.

“People are pretty shaken up,” eyewitness Mike Isaacs told CNN.

“The mood is pretty freaked out, you know, a few people were saying it could be anyone.”

Witnesses described scenes of chaos.

“I heard shooting — four or five shots,” Derrick McKie, 49, told the Post. “It sounded like from a single gun,” he said, adding that ambulances and police cars rushed to the scene.

“I seen them putting the cop in the ambulance. He looked messed up,” added McKie, a barber. “He took a high-caliber weapon to the face. He was lifeless… I couldn’t see where the holes was at, all I could see was blood. His body was lifeless.”

A grand jury’s decision not to indict the white officer over the July 17 death of Eric Garner triggered mass protests in New York and other US cities.

The move followed a similar verdict in Ferguson, Missouri that sparked riots there and demonstrations in cities across America.

The St Louis suburb, a two-hour flight from New York, has been a hub of protest and racial tensions since unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead on August 9 by a white police officer.

“It’s been sort of strange around here. Pretty tense since the protests have been occurring in New York City,” said Isaacs, the eyewitness.

“And so, you know, everyone’s pretty shaken up and just trying to figure out what happened.”

Last month, a rookie police officer fatally shot Akai Gurley, an unarmed 28-year-old black man, in the stairwell of a Brooklyn apartment building.

These cases, along with the death of a 12-year-old black boy who was gunned down by police officers in Ohio while handling a toy pistol in a playground, have inflamed underlying disgruntlement in the United States in relations between police and African Americans.

“I heard shooting — four or five shots,” one local resident, Derrick McKie, 49, told the Post. He was in the area where the officers were shot. “It sounded like from a single gun.”

Ambulances and police cars rushed to the scene, McKie told the Post.

McKie added that he saw “them putting the cop in the ambulance. He looked messed up.
“He took a high-caliber weapon to the face. He was lifeless,” he told the Post. “I couldn’t see where the holes was that. All I could see was blood. His body was lifeless.”

Modal Trigg Carmen Jimenez, 32, a social worker from Bedford-Stuyvesant, told the Post that she was on the subway platform when the gunman ran inside. He was being chased by other officers.

“Everything happened so quick,” Jimenez said. “We were standing waiting for the G train. We heard arguing from the other end of the platform.

“It looked like two cops came in,” she added. “There was lots of yelling and they said, ‘Everybody get down.’

“We tried to get out of there, and there was a lot of shouting. People were screaming. People were trying to run.

“I threw myself on the floor,” Jimenez told the Post. “I was afraid for my life and afraid for my baby.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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