New York City Police Officer Killed in the line of duty

At a quarter to 11:00 on the night of January 27, 1972, two rookie patrolmen, Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie, were on their beat, poised on this corner of 11th Street and Avenue B. As they stood, perhaps talking, perhaps only pausing silently for a moment, three, or maybe four, men came toward them across the intersection, parted to pass, then suddenly spun arou ​nd and unleashed a thundering volley of shots into the backs of the two cops. As the pair went down, the men stood over them and fired again and again – Laurie took six slugs, Foster eight. One of the gunmen fled North up Avenue B; the others jumped into a getaway car and sped away. Hours later the car was found idling by the L subway station at 14th Street and First Avenue. Empty shells were found in the station itself, indicating that the killers had fled, courtesy of the MTA, into Brooklyn. Foster died instantly, Laurie on the operating table early the next day.

Two cops mercilessly assassinated was shocking enough, but Foster and Laurie were only the latest victims of a nearly yearlong vendetta against the NYPD. On May 19, 1971, patrolman Nicholas Binetti and Thomas Curry flagged down a car at Riverside Drive and 106th Street for a minor traffic violation. Suddenly, their patrol car was riddled by a burst of machine gunfire from the car. Though gravely wounded, neither died. Two days later patrolmen Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, walking out of a project called the Colonial Park Houses at 159-20 Harlem River Drive in Inwood, were ambushed. This pair was not so lucky – the attack was fatal for both.

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