New details released in the execution-style killing of two New York City police officers reveal a suspected killer with a long, troubled history of arrests, incarceration and family estrangement.
According to police, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the suspect in Saturday’s double homicide in Brooklyn, had a rap sheet that included 19 arrests in two states over the past decade for robbery and gun possession and served a two-year stint in a Georgia prison.
Brinsley’s family told police that he had a traumatic childhood and for years has been estranged from his family. The family told investigators that he may have had some undiagnosed emotional or mental issues and had as recently as last year attempted to hang himself, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce during a press conference on Sunday afternoon.
Boyce said that Brinsley had no prior history of violent crimes. But that all changed early on Saturday morning around 5 a.m. ET when Brinsley got into his ex-girlfriend’s Baltimore County, Maryland apartment with a key he shouldn’t have had, shot her once and fled on a Bolt Bus headed to New York City.