Hours before an increasingly disturbed drifter executed two city cops in cold blood, he confronted his ex-girlfriend and threatened to kill himself — before she talked him out of it and took a bullet herself.
The madman then set out on a cop-killing mission that ended with Saturday’s shocking bloodletting in Brooklyn.
More details emerged Monday about 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who cut short the lives of Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu before taking his own life.
The NYPD’s computer crime squad was compiling a profile of the killer — “and it’s quite scary,” said Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
Brinsley’s Instagram page — which he used to announce his intention of “putting wings on pigs” as he made his way from Baltimore to Bedford-Stuyvesant — contained 119 images, accompanied with written messages.
“A lot of these things are self-despair, but they’re also anti-government,” Boyce said.
Some posts discussed burning the American flag and others complained about the plight of African-Americans. In his final Instagram posts, he made reference to Michael Brown and Eric Garner — unarmed men who were killed by police and whose deaths sparked months of rallies.
This image from a security camera shows Brinsley inside of the Atlantic Mall in Brooklyn.
This image from a security camera shows Brinsley inside of the Atlantic Mall in Brooklyn.
Police are trying to pinpoint Brinsley's whereabouts in the hours before the Saturday's shooting. He's seen here inside the Atlantic Mall in Brooklyn.
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Among the thousands of images recovered from his phone was video of a protest in Union Square Park from earlier this month, “where he is a spectator watching one of the protests,” Boyce said.
“He is standing there like anybody else. Taking (pictures), watching the picture of an event go by, of a protest go by,” the chief added.
But there was scant mention of guns. And the former flame he seriously wounded, Shaneka Thompson, 29, told investigators she had never seen Brinsley with one.
instagram Ismaaiyl Brinsley wrote this message on Instagram before killing two cops Saturday.
instagram This is the Instagram account of cop killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley.
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“The young lady he shot, a very courageous young woman,” said Boyce. “He put the gun to his own head when he broke into her apartment, and then she talked him out of that, and he later shot her before he left.”
The silver pistol he used was purchased in 1996 at a Jonesboro, Ga., pawnshop, apparently by a straw buyer, sources said. It was unclear how and when Brinsley, who had a long history of arrests and mental illness, got his hands on the weapon.
He used it to pump four bullets into the heads of the officers as they sat in their car outside the Tompkins Houses. Cops believe he carried the gun inside a Styrofoam container that he kept in a plastic bag. He was seen with the bag in Atlantic Center Mall, which he reached by subway after getting to Midtown by a Bolt bus, and later had the same bag at the crime scene.
Brinsley dumped Thompson’s phone — which he stole and had used to call her mom — by the Barclays Center, and his whereabouts are unknown between 12:07 p.m. and 2:47 p.m., when he ambushed the police cruiser, took a shooting stance and opened fire.
Officials asked anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers, noting the killer was wearing sneakers, army fatigue pants and a distinctive brown-and-green jacket.
“We owe it to the (cops’ families) to find out what happened, and that’s our main concern here,” Boyce said.
At 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Baltimore police became aware of Brinsley’s Instagram threat and called the 70th Precinct stationhouse in East Flatbush, where an officer initiated an intercity correspondence, officials said. But a fax with the suspect’s photo and information wasn’t received until a minute before the double murder.
“There was no lapse on anybody’s part,” Boyce said.
The warning came after Brinsley’s near-fatal encounter with Thompson, an Air Force reservist who lives in Owings Mills, Md., outside Baltimore.
Brinsley wore this jacket when he ambushed the officers.
Facebook Ismaaiyl Brinsley used social media to express self-despair.
Facebook Ismaaiyl Brinsley had a long history of arrests and mental illness.
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Yevette Seay, 41, told the Daily News she woke up early Saturday morning with her neighbor screaming “ ‘Help me! Help me!’ from the top of her lungs.”
She then heard her yelling, “Don’t put me through this,” she recalled.
Her sister Angel Seay then saw the gunman run past her, looking confused and talking into a phone.
She said she would often hear jealous arguments between her neighbor and the man. The two had an on-again, off-again relationship.
Seay said she called 911 and help arrived after about seven minutes, while Thompson went outside her door, bloody and wearing pajamas.
“She was like, ‘I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die. I can’t die like this,’ ” Seay said.
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