Hub police wary after NYC cop ‘assassinated’
The cold-blooded assassination of a New York City police officer as she sat in a mobile command vehicle has Boston’s top cop warning his officers to be wary.
“I’m saddened to hear of the tragic loss of NYPD Officer Miosotis Familia,” police Commissioner William B. Evans said in a statement. “I’ve urged my officers to remain vigilant and aware of their surroundings at all times given the recent violence targeting law enforcement officers across the country.”
Hub cops received a memo yesterday from the Boston Regional Intelligence Center detailing the “ambush style attack” that left Familia dead, and urging officers to remain aware of their surroundings “given the current threat environment and recent violence targeting law enforcement officers.”
Police say Alexander Bonds, a 34-year-old exconvict, walked up to an RV-like command post in the Bronx about 12:30 a.m. and fatally shot Familia through the passenger-side window as she was writing in her notebook.
New York City police Commissioner James O’Neill said Familia was “assassinated in an unprovoked attack on cops.”
In a Facebook video posted in September, Bond ranted about police killing and abusing people and threatened “we gonna do something.”
“I’m not playing, Mr. Officer. I don’t care about 100 police watching this,” Bonds said, adding: “It’s time for people to wisen up.”
After Familia’s partner frantically radioed for help, officers caught up with Bonds about a block away and killed him when he pulled out a revolver, police said.
Familia, 48, was a 12-year veteran of the department who spent her entire career in the high-crime Bronx precinct. The command post there had been set up and staffed around the clock in the wake of a triple shooting in March.
“She was on duty serving this city, protecting people, doing what she believed in and doing the job she loved,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. Police said they were trying to establish the motive for the shooting.
There was no immediate indication the killing had a racial or ethnic dimension. Bonds was black. Familia was black and Hispanic. Her family came from the Dominican Republic. She apparently had no previous contact with Bonds.
The attack was reminiscent of the 2014 ambush killings of two New York City officers who were slain in their cruiser by a man who had announced online moments before that he was planning to shoot two “pigs” in retaliation for the police chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York.
That gunman, 28-yearold Ismaaiyl Brinsley, killed himself.