STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The two NYPD officers who were executed Saturday inside their police vehicle in Brooklyn have been identified as Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.
"They were, quite simply, assassinated," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a press conference held Saturday night at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. "Targeted for their uniform and for the responsibility they embraced to keep the people of this city safe."
Both officers worked out of the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn, although they had been posted outside the Tompkins Houses, within the 79th Precinct, as part of a crime reduction initiative aimed at various troubled city housing developments, when they were shot, Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
Ramos and Liu were dressed in full police uniform, sitting in front of 98 Tompkins Avenue in a marked critical response vehicle when the gunman approached them from the vehicle's passenger side and opened fire, Bratton said.
The gunman, identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, walked up to the car's passenger side -- where Liu was sitting -- took a shooting stance and fired his weapon several times through the passenger window, striking both officers in the head, Bratton said.
"Liu and Ramos never had the opportunity to draw their weapons," the police commissioner said. "They may never have seen their assailant."
After shooting the officers, Brinsley fled down the street and into a subway station on Myrtle Avenue with other officers in pursuit. Before police could reach him, Brinsley shot himself in the head on the subway platform, Bratton said. A silver semi-automatic firearm was recovered by his body.
The officers were rushed to Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, where they were pronounced dead.
Officer Liu was a newlywed and Officer Ramos, who just turned 40 earlier this month, had a 13-year-old son, Bratton said. Ramos had been a school safety officer who finally fulfilled his dream of becoming a police officer three years ago, the police commissioner said.