Parole opposition mounts for NYPD cop's killers

Rookie cop Eddie Byrne, 22, was alone in a squad car on a cold February night in 1988, protecting the Queens home of a witness in a drug case who had been threatened by dealers. It was about 3 a.m. when the gun flashed -- five bullets were pumped into his head.

Byrne, who was living in Massapequa, wasn't caught in the crossfire of a shootout and he wasn't being robbed -- he was killed because he was a cop. Days earlier, a powerful drug dealer had ordered a hit from jail on any cop as payback for his arrest and offered $8,000 as a reward.

"It was an all-out assassination," said retired officer Tony Keller, one of the first to the scene in South Jamaica that night. "This just stunned us all. If they could kill a cop like that, no one was safe."

The brazen killing shocked a city mired in an epidemic of drugs and violence and became a flash point that helped usher in an era of change nationwide. Next month, the four men convicted will be up for parole, a long shot, but Byrne's family, police and politicians want to make sure they stay behind bars.

Sen. Charles Schumer, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg all sent letters on the family's behalf.

Last month, the police department's largest union added to its website a form letter that can be sent to the parole board urging that convicted cop killers remain in jail. More than 250,000 letters have been sent. Hundreds went to the Byrne killers.

In the late 1980s, Queens was the ground zero of the crack epidemic in New York, and two drug dealers reigned, Lorenzo "Fat Cat" Nichols and his associate Howard "Pappy" Mason. Their army of thugs kept addicts on cheap crack and terrorized residents. Crime was rampant; in 1990, the city's number of murders hit an all-time high of 2,245.

"It was a tough job for a cop then," Keller said.

Mason directed the hit through his associate Philip Copeland. He and three others, Todd Scott, David McClary and Scott Cobb, planned it.

On Feb. 26, Scott distracted Byrne while McClary shot him. Cobb was the wheelman. Copeland was to provide the alibi. When police arrived, the car was still running. Glass was shattered, and Byrne was slumped over.

and the week of Nov. 26 for Cobb.

About 10,000 uniformed police officers from around the country attended Byrne's funeral. The story was on the cover of Time Magazine. President Ronald Reagan called the family at home and offered condolences, and Byrne's father presented then-GOP presidential nominee George H.W. Bush with his son's police shield. Bush showed the shield at campaign rallies around the country when he spoke about the need to crack down on illegal drugs.

The case became a turning point in the war on drugs. The NYPD established teams of undercover officers to sweep dealers off the streets in drug-plagued neighborhoods. Officers went out in pairs instead of alone. A federal police funding program was named in Byrne's memory.