2 NYC officers dead in ambush-style shooting

Two NYPD officers were killed Saturday in Brooklyn as they sat in their squad car by a gunman who reportedly threatened to shoot police hours earlier on Instagram. The gunman, a 28-year-old with a criminal record who police believe may have been acting in revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, killed himself moments later in a subway station. The incident left the nation's largest police department stunned, and is sure to further inflame tensions between police and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who police had already said was unwelcome at police funerals because of his perceived support for anti-police protesters. The brazen shooting occurred at approximately 3 p.m., and left Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos dead. Police said the gunman, identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, appeared to be carrying out a planned assassination. “The perp came out of the houses, walked up behind the car and lit them up,” a high-ranking police official told the New York Daily News.  "They were, quite simply, assassinated," NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said in a press conference late Saturday. The officers were shot in the head at point-blank range by the suspect, who then then fled to a nearby subway station before turning the gun on himself. Both officers were rushed to a nearby hospital, where one was pronounced dead, police said. The second officer was later pronounced dead at the hospital, a senior city official and a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the shooting told The Associated Press. The New York Post reports that investigators believed the shooting may have been motivated by the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. “I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” a person believed to be Brinsley wrote in an Instagram post that referenced both Brown and Garner posted just three hours before the officers were shot, the New York Post reported. Bratton confirmed that authorities were looking into some "very anti-police" Instagram posts. The shooting comes at a time when police in New York and nationwide have been criticized by some over the circumstances surrounding the death of Garner, a black man who was stopped by police for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. Amateur video captured an officer wrapping his arm around Garner's neck in what some have described as a chokehold and wrestling him to the ground. Garner was heard saying, "I can't breathe" and later died. Demonstrators around the country have protests since a grand jury decided on Dec. 3 not to indict the officer involved in Garner's death, a decision that closely followed a Missouri grand jury's decision not to indict a Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Several New York officers were assaulted during demonstrations, including one that drew thousands to the Brooklyn Bridge in which two lieutenants were attacked.