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'I want his head chopped off'
06/03/2007 15:09 - (SA)
New York - A prisoner enraged by the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by undercover detectives allegedly tried to hire someone to behead the police commissioner and bomb police headquarters for $65 000, authorities said.
David Brown, 47, was arrested on Monday on a charge of criminal solicitation after he allegedly offered an undercover officer the payout to kill commissioner Raymond Kelly and blow up the headquarters, said Paul J Browne, the New York police department's deputy commissioner for public information.
"I want his head chopped off," Brown allegedly told the undercover officer in a taped conversation.
Police said Brown was to be arraigned on Tuesday.
Brown, who is behind bars on a separate charge, allegedly asked a man to contact someone who was willing to undertake the contract killing.
That led to the undercover officer making contact with Brown, who allegedly promised to pay $15 000 for the hit and another $50 000 for the bombing, police said.
Police alleged that in two taped telephone conversations and one meeting that took place at Rikers Island prison in late February, Brown told the undercover officer that he was "fed up with the case where the guy got shot 50 times".
Brown was referring to Sean Bell, the 23-year-old man whom police shot to death on his wedding day in November. Two of Bell's friends also were shot but survived with serious injuries. Police have said 50 shots were fired in the incident.
He was going to 'retrieve a gun'
Lawyers for the officers have said their clients became convinced Bell and his friends were going to retrieve a gun from a car parked around the corner after overhearing them get into an argument with another patron.
The wounded men claim the officers never identified themselves as police before opening fire.
Bell was black, as are his friends wounded in the shooting. Some of the officers are black and some are white. All have been removed from duty and put on paid leave.
A grand jury is considering possible charges against the five officers involved. Two of the officers testified before a grand jury Monday.
In the taped conversations, police said Brown allegedly blamed Kelly for not taking the "initiative to prosecute the officers. That kind of got me frustrated to the point where I want him murdered".
Police did not have the name of Brown's lawyer.
Brown was convicted in 2001 of trying to kill his wife and is serving time for violation of an order of protection for her. He has been convicted previously on 30 charges - 14 of them felonies that included five violent crimes.
"He has nothing against the police," Brown's sister, Marilyn, told the Daily News in Tuesday's edition. "He would never hurt an officer. That's not him. This is a shock to me," she added.
- AP
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