NYPD: Man Attempted to Shoot Cop but Gun Was Empty

AP/John Minchillo
AP/John Minchillo

Only hours after two New York policemen were ambushed and executed in Brooklyn by a man claiming he wanted revenge for the death of Eric Garner, a man in the Bronx allegedly attempted to murder a third New York policeman. He only failed because his gun didn’t work when he pulled the trigger, police say.

On Saturday night at 9 p.m., Raymond Leonardo, 18, was allegedly shooting out windows with a .357 caliber revolver when police arrived. According to law enforcement, he refused to drop the gun and aimed point blank at one policeman.

But when he pulled the trigger, it didn’t fire, officials claim. Leonardo fled with the gun in his pocket, then was captured after running a few blocks. One police source offered a simple cause for the gun’s inability to function: “It looks like he used up all of his bullets.”

On Saturday afternoon, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, after writing on Instagram, “I’m putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let’s take 2 of theirs,” executed Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu by approaching their police car and shooting them both in the head.

Before Saturday afternoon’s shooting, the last NYPD officer to be shot to death was 22-year veteran Peter Figoski, who died in December 2011 when a suspect in a Brooklyn apartment break-in shot him in the face.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) issued a report last summer stating how dangerous it is to work in law-enforcement:

  1. 1,501 law-enforcement officers, including local and state police officers, federal officers, correctional officers, and military law-enforcement officers;
  2. In 2013, 100 law-enforcement officers were killed;
  3. There is an average of roughly 58,000 assaults against law enforcement each year;
  4. By last August, New York City had lost more officers in the line of duty than any other city’s police department, with 697 officers killed.

Prophetically, in speaking of law enforcement deaths in 2013-2014, the report stated, “Five officers were killed in ambushes, which continue to be a major threat to law enforcement safety.”

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