Hundreds of police officers
paid their respects to Officer Brian Moore outside Jamaica Hospital
Medical Center on Monday as the officer's body was carried away by
ambulance.
Credit
Uli Seit for The New York Times.
Officer Brian Moore followed his father into the New York Police Department,
rose to the ranks of an elite plainclothes unit tasked with confronting
the city’s most dangerous street crime and died on Monday, two days
after a gunman opened fire on him in Queens.
At
the time that Officer Moore, 25, was shot on Saturday evening, he was
still young enough to be living in the Long Island home of his father,
Raymond. Yet he was seasoned enough in the job he had been drawn to
since childhood to have earned accolades from superiors and departmental
medals for “meritorious” police work. He had made over 150 arrests
since joining the department in July 2010.
“In
his very brief career, he already proved himself to be an exceptional
young officer,” the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said in
announcing Officer Moore’s death, outside Jamaica Hospital Medical
Center on Monday afternoon.
“I did not know this officer in person in life,” a visibly shaken Mr. Bratton added. “I’ve only come to know him in death.”
Officer
Moore’s death plunged the nation’s largest police force into mourning
for the second time in six months. Though his wounds were grave from the
moment the gunman’s bullet struck his face, officials had held out hope
that he might survive. But on Monday his family made the decision to
remove him from life support, prompting an outpouring of grief.
Shortly
after Officer Moore’s death, the Queens district attorney, Richard A.
Brown, said the charges against the man accused of opening fire,
Demetrius Blackwell, 35, would be elevated to include first-degree
murder.
“We
lost one of the best amongst us, a young man who was called to do good
for others,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at an evening news conference at
Police Headquarters. “This was his dream because he had seen such
extraordinary examples in his own family.” ”
At
a time of low crime in the city and a national debate over deadly
police actions, officials said Officer Moore’s death served as a
reminder of the dangers inherent in everyday situations encountered by
officers. The shooting erupted in an instant as the officers tried to
question a person they deemed suspicious.
It
differed, in that respect, from the targeted killing of Officers Rafael
Ramos and Wenjian Liu in December by a man who linked his actions to
protests over police killings of unarmed black men in Missouri and on
Staten Island. The police have said that no such political motive
existed for Mr. Blackwell, whom they described as a “professional
criminal.”
“Policing is never easy,” Mr. Bratton said at the evening news conference. “At this time in America, it’s even more difficult.”
For
city officers, the story of the Moores was the story of many police
families. Not only Officer Moore’s father but also his uncle and his
cousin were New York City officers. Officer Moore grew up on Long
Island, in a middle-class neighborhood filled with city workers. He
attended a public high school, Plainedge, whose athletic field was named
for Edward R. Byrne, another alumnus who followed his father into the
city’s Police Department and was fatally shot on duty in Queens as a
22-year-old rookie in 1988.
“Officer
Moore was very proud of his father and uncle, and they were very proud
of him,” said Lawrence Byrne, the deputy commissioner of legal matters
and the brother of Edward Byrne.
Officer
Moore worked in a department where his family name preceded him in some
of the highest ranks. Officer Byrne knew Raymond Moore as a high school
classmate at Plainedge High School, in North Massapequa; James P.
O’Neill, the chief of department, worked with him in the warrants squad
in the 1990s and on Monday called the Moores a “terrific family.”
On
Monday evening, a candlelight vigil was to be held at the high school
in honor of Officer Moore, the local schools superintendent said, to
“remember the dedicated, courageous and kind young man he was.”
It
was about 6:15 p.m. on Saturday when Officer Moore steered his unmarked
police sedan toward a man whom he and his partner observed walking on a
quiet street in Queens Village and adjusting his waistband in what the
police said was a suspicious manner.
They
pulled up behind him and as they began talking to him, the police said,
the man turned and fired at the car. Officer Moore was struck in the
cheek and had trauma to his brain, officials said. Officer Moore’s
partner, Officer Erik Jansen, was not hit.
Ninety
minutes after the shooting, officers arrested Mr. Blackwell at a house
within view of the scene of the gunfire, near the corner of 212th Street
and 104th Road. He had discarded the weapon, the police said, and tried
to mix into a crowd of curious neighbors as heavily armed officers went
house to house.
For
more than a day, officers searched the backyards and rooftops for the
gun used in the shooting. It was found by detectives on Monday morning
under a box near a grill in a backyard that officials said was along the
short route they suspected Mr. Blackwell took after the shooting. The
gun, a silver .38-caliber, five-shot revolver, had two live rounds and
three expended rounds..
The police said three .38-caliber rounds were fired at the officers, two striking their car and one hitting Officer Moore.
The
gun was among 23 reported stolen in 2011 from a Georgia gun shop, the
chief of detectives, Robert K. Boyce, said. Nine of those weapons,
including the revolver, have been recovered in New York City by the
police, he said.
On
Monday afternoon, hundreds of officers looked on as an ambulance
carrying Office Moore’s body left the hospital and headed to the morgue.
Distraught relatives placed their hands on the vehicle. Along the
route, firefighters at every station stood and saluted. At the morgue, a
sea of blue formed.
Still
others converged on the gray Cape Cod-style home where Officer Moore
lived in North Massapequa. This week, thousands will gather for the
familiar rituals of a police goodbye.[source]
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