Mother of NYPD cop killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley ‘deeply sorry about what happened’
Shakuwra Dabre says she saw a photo online of her son on a stretcher before she found out that he executed two NYPD officers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and took his own life.
BY DALE EISINGER , TINA MOORE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Monday, December 22, 2014, 3:07 PM
Updated: Monday, December 22, 2014, 6:43 PM
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JEFF BACHNER/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSShakuwra Dabre says she saw her son on a stretcher online before she found out what happened.
The grieving mother of the gunman who killed two NYPD police officers extended her condolences to their families Monday, saying she understood their pain.
“I am still deeply sorry about what happened at the hands of my son,” said Shakuwra Dabre, 54, of Brooklyn. “And please accept my deepest condolences, sincerely. As a mother now I hurt for the loss of my son. Just like they’re hurting for the loss of their sons.”
Dabre said she was shocked when she went online and saw a photo of her son Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, lying on a gurney Saturday after the shooting.
“I pulled out my laptop and I went online and I saw his body and I knew he was dead when I looked at it,” Dabre told the Daily News.
“I knew when I saw it. He was gone. I knew it was my son. And that’s how I found out.”
UNCREDITED/APNYPD Officers Rafael Ramos (left) and Wenjian Liu were killed Saturday while on assignment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
JEFF BACHNER/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSShakuwra Dabre (center), mother of Ismaaiyl Brinsley, flanked by daughter Jalaa'a Brinsley (left) and Brinsley’s aunt Ann Arledge open up about their grief over the death of their son and the two police officers.
Dabre said that her son struggled with mental illness his entire life and said he refused the family’s repeated attempts at help.
He tried to kill himself when he was 13 and had to be institutionalized in the years leading up to the bloody Saturday massacre that left two of New York’s Finest dead.
“Unfortunately, this situation happened and it culminated in the end of his life and the tragic loss of two innocent police officers,” she said.
COUNTY OF DEKALB, GEORGIAIsmaaiyl Brinsley, 28, suffered from mental illness and had once threatened to kill himself.
Dabre was alerted that her son was in trouble by the estranged mother of his child.
When Dabre first saw the picture of her son on the stretcher, she didn’t know he had shot and killed Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, she said.
“I was so torn when I saw him on that stretcher,” she said. “Then I found out too that he did that. And I was horrified. Because I didn't want no loss of nobody’s life.”
Brinsley talked to two menbefore he killed the officers at 2:47 p.m. outside the Tompkins Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He told the strangers to follow him on Instagram and “watch what I’m going to do.”
He had posted a threat to cops on the photo sharing site earlier, cops said.
“I’m putting wings on pigs today. They take one of ours...let’s take 2 of theirs,” he posted along with a photo of the silver gun he would use to shoot the officers.
DEBBIE EGAN-CHINIsmaaiyl Brinsley is carried away after he shot himself soon after he opened fire at two NYPD officers sitting in a patrol car.
Cops were in pursuit of him after he shot the officers, but Brinsley finished himself off with a gunshot to the head after entering the subway station.
Brinsley’s day had started out violent when he traveled to an ex-girlfriend’s house in Baltimore’s suburbs at 5:30 a.m. and shot her once. She was expected to survive.
He then took a Bolt Bus to Manhattan. He dumped the phone at Barclays Center at 12:07 p.m. and then disappeared until he blasted the police officers.
Cops believe he was in the city earlier in the week and are trying to determine his whereabouts, officials said.
