On the afternoon of Saturday, December 20, 2014, two New York City police officers were killed while on duty in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The New York City Police Department attributed both deaths to Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a 28-year-old man born in Brooklyn who had come into the city from Maryland that morning. He did not live to be arrested. He died by suicide the same afternoon, and the deaths were never tested in any court.
The day had begun hours earlier, in Maryland. Before dawn, in the Baltimore County suburb of Owings Mills, his former girlfriend was seriously injured, and Baltimore County police named him as the man they wanted. By early afternoon, detectives there had found threats to kill police officers posted to his Instagram account and had established that he was in Brooklyn. Their warning was still making its way through the New York department when the officers died. His posts invoked the deaths of Michael Brown and of Eric Garner, who had died after a police chokehold; both deaths had drawn protests.
Brinsley was born in Brooklyn, and in the years that followed he moved often between the South and New York. His last known address was in Georgia, though the department said he had not been there for nearly two years. He had been in New York City earlier in the week of the killings.
His criminal record ran across three states and almost a decade. He was arrested at least 15 times in Georgia between August 2004 and June 2013, on charges that included assault, shoplifting and grand larceny, and four times in Ohio in 2009. Counted together, the Georgia and Ohio arrests numbered at least 19, and the charges included robbery, domestic assault and offenses under the arms law. Beginning in 2011 he served two years in prison on an arms-law possession offense. By December 2014 Georgia also held an outstanding warrant against him for violating his probation. Maryland, by contrast, had no record of him at all.
New York detectives found no sign that he belonged to a gang, and his social-media accounts carried no religious statements.
They had been together for less than a year, and she was his only tie to Maryland; he had never lived there. Baltimore County police were called to her apartment in Owings Mills before dawn on December 20, where she had been seriously injured. According to the county police, an argument over the status of the relationship came first. She was expected to survive, and she was able to speak with detectives the next day. He left Maryland that morning and was in Manhattan before 11 a.m.
Over the following hours Baltimore County detectives worked out where he had gone. They prepared a wanted poster for him, and by early afternoon they knew that he was in Brooklyn and that his account had been used to threaten police.
Wenjian Liu joined the department's Auxiliary Police in 2006 and graduated from the Police Academy in 2007. By December 2014 he had served seven years as an officer, and he had recently settled in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn.
Rafael Ramos had lived in Brooklyn all his life. He had been with the department for two years.
After he reached the city, his trail was broken. Detectives later described a gap of less than three hours in which they could not account for his movements before the killings.
That afternoon both officers were killed in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and he died by suicide the same afternoon.
He was dead the same afternoon, so the New York investigation was never directed toward a prosecution. Its work was to establish what had happened and why.
Detectives analyzed five surveillance videos: two from before the killings, two from afterward, and one from inside a subway station. No known video captured the killings themselves. The department's Computer Crimes Squad built a profile of him from his Facebook, Instagram and Gmail accounts, and detectives catalogued 119 items on his Instagram account.
Investigators set out to learn whether he had joined the protests over the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner or had only seized on their cause. As of December 22, police had not determined whether he had a mental illness. By the end of the month, detectives had pieced together his path from the moment he reached New York to the killings.
He was never arrested, charged or tried, in New York or in Maryland. The deaths of the two officers stand as killings attributed to him by the New York City Police Department, and the injuries in Owings Mills as harm attributed to him by police. Because he died the same day, neither attribution was ever answered by a defense or decided by a judge or jury.
No court made any finding in this case. Every statement about who caused the deaths in Brooklyn and the injuries in Owings Mills rests on police attribution, not on a verdict.
His motive was never settled by any finding. Whether he had any part in the protests he invoked was still unresolved in the first days of the investigation, and so was the question of his mental health. The gap of less than three hours before the killings had not been closed when police first described their work; by December 31 detectives had reconstructed his path, though no court ever examined that account.
August 2004: earliest of at least 15 arrests in Georgia, which ran through June 2013.
2009: four arrests in Ohio.
2011: begins a two-year prison term on an arms-law possession offense.
By December 2014: an outstanding Georgia warrant for probation violation; no criminal record in Maryland.
December 20, 2014, before dawn: his former girlfriend of less than a year is seriously injured in Owings Mills, Maryland, after an argument over the relationship; Baltimore County police seek him.
December 20, 2014, late morning: he arrives in Manhattan.
December 20, 2014, early afternoon: Baltimore County police find his online threats against officers and alert the NYPD.
December 20, 2014, afternoon: two NYPD officers are killed in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; the department attributes the deaths to him; he dies by suicide the same day.
December 21, 2014: Baltimore County detectives interview his former girlfriend.
December 22, 2014: police have not yet determined whether he had a mental illness; the NYPD Computer Crimes Squad and detectives are still examining his online accounts and the surveillance video.
By December 31, 2014: detectives have pieced together his path from his arrival in New York to the killings.